Nutrition is the core modality of functional medicine. The importance of high quality foods and phytonutrient diversity is emphasized to address clinical imbalances and move individuals toward the highest expression of health. An advanced nutrition assessment leads to a personalized therapeutic intervention created to promote optimal health and prevent diet and lifestyle-related disease.
Movement, strength, and flexibility are key in preventing deconditioning and enhancing the immune sysytem and mood. Everyone can begin to move with a graded exercise program that gradually builds in intensity over time. The right amount of exercise should not exceed your daily energy limit, nor increase pain.
Each day we have a finite amount of energy available. Sleep and rest restore energy reserves. Depleted energy reserves can contribute to fatigue, pain, increased stress levels, reduced attention span, and sluggish cognitive performance. Take care to balance activity and rest to stay within your daily energy allowance.
Managing stress is important. Mental strain and emotional stress sap your adrenal reserves (cortisol) and lower your daily energy allowance. Finding ways to help your body get rid of stress is important for healing, cognitive function, mood stability, hormonal balance, and a healthy immune system.
This plan is used to treat health conditions that involve intestinal candida overgrowth, recurrent yeast infections in the mouth, skin, and vaginal tract.
This plan is used to lower inflammation, high blood pressure, and cholesterol. In addition, it improves insulin sensitivity and reverses metabolic syndrome.
This plan is designed for individuals who are interested in the core principles of healthy eating, the connection between food choices and health, and the relationship one has with food.
This plan is useful for people that have hormonal imbalances, toxic exposures, multiple allergies or food sensitivities, and genetic SNIPS (single nucleotide polymorphisms) that slow detoxification pathways.
This plan has no calorie restriction. The purpose is to identify food triggers that cause immediate and delayed symptoms, reduce inflammation, support a healthy microbiome, and heal the gut.
Grains, fruits, vegetables, dairy, and sweeteners can cause painful gas, bloating, and diarrhea. These foods contain sugars that can be difficult to digest leading to conditions such as small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, irritible bowel syndrome and may influence irritible bowel disease.
This plan benefits those who have compromised mitochondrial function associated with diabetes and neurological diseases like Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and multiple sclerosis. The cells in the brain, heart, nerves, and muscles have high concentrations of mitochondria. Poor nutrition, high stress, inflammation, and toxin exposure can decrease the function of mitochondria.
Fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, herbs, spices, nuts, seeds, and teas are rich in phytonutrients. Phytonutrients come in different colors—green, yellow, orange, red, blue, purple, white, tan, and brown. These colorful compounds are powerful defenders of health supporting the immune and cardiovascular system, brain, and healthy hormone metabolism.
Weaver Functional Medicine personalizes the well-researched food plans of the Institute for Functional Medicine to meet clients' health needs and goals. The chart above lists the plans and features. Every plan is uniquely adjusted with your macronutrient and calorie needs, food preferences, allergies and sensitivities.
The air we breathe, the food we eat, the chemicals we use, the stress we carry, and the amount of sleep we get affect the way our genes work. These influences cause epigenetic changes that can make our genes behave well or poor. Food is one of the biggest influencers of our genetic expression.
Foods plays a role in all phases of our detoxification pathways. What, when, and how much we eat influence the body's ability to break down nutrients and medications and eliminate dangerous compounds that we eat, breathe, or absorb through our skin.
Thyroid hormones, insulin, cortisol, estrogen, testosterone, and neurotransmitters that affect mood and cognition are influenced by the nutrients, fats, and the amount of sugar we consume.
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