March 2025 Newsletter

Hello LOTUS family! March is National Nutrition Month, and Dr. Tuttle and her nurse Heidi would love to talk nutrition with you!

At the start of the new year, we talked about how we aspired to feel better, and the various ways we could focus on doing just that. Nutrition plays a vital role in the way our body performs. What we consume inevitably is deposited in our body to use now, store for later, or waste.

Nutritional advice is nearly everywhere you look, and some may argue even thinking about diet prompts advertisements during leisurely strolls online. I remember years ago watching a popular daytime talk show hosting a doctor that made recommendations for everything by adding a supplement or certain behavior modification. I was worried that people would really try to implement all this doctor’s advice, and what sort of tool chest would they need to store all this stuff? When were they going to live their life if they incorporated all these new rituals?

I gained a considerable amount of weight in my 20s when I was living on my own, going to college, working full time and squeezing in time with my friends. I ate really unhealthily, and overall did not look out for my body and it’s future. I was shocked in nursing school to find my own weight while we were learning to use a mechanical beam scale. I could not believe I had gained so much weight.

I started a pretty strict diet and regularly worked out from January until June that year and lost a good 30 pounds with cardio and weight lifting. Struggling at the last 10 pounds, my sister, a registered dietitian, recommended I begin an elimination diet. The reason she suggested this was not to lose weight however, but to decrease inflammation that showed up as weight on the scale, and to hopefully improve symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome, acne, and bacterial or viral infections, and migraine.

Through my sister’s wisdom, I learned that gluten and dairy were the most remarkable inflammatory consumables we have in America. There are many reasons for this, and I’ll bet you’ve heard of some of them recently in the news. I was very driven then to attempt this elimination, however. And 15 years later, I have adopted being gluten free (mostly).

I experienced a significant improvement of my previous mentioned ailments. I also lost more than my last 10 pounds after eliminating gluten and dairy. Since then, experimenting with different eliminations has been easier for me, but I usually find my way back to at least being gluten free. The beauty of an elimination diet is that you can add a certain food group back in several weeks later to see if it truly does impact you. In my personal experience, I can eat dairy, but I make sure to eat full fat dairy when I do as the lighter or lesser fat options have more sugar to replace the taste of missing fat.

Speaking of sugar, it, too, is very inflammatory and not easy to avoid in processed foods. Try to keep your sugar intake to less than 30g per day to reduce the inflammation caused by sugar, and keep in mind, that sugar can be called many different things on a nutrition label.

March Skin Tip! My complexion cleared up considerably when I nixed gluten. It did even better without lactose and really calmed down when I watched my sugar! Bonus! The skin tells a good story of what is happening inside the body when something is not right. Inflammation presents as acne, eczema, psoriasis and other skin conditions.

Dr. Tuttle has recognized that her body performs its best when she watches her sugar. Avoiding sugar while staying satiated with protein and fat has helped her stay fast and focused. For years, she has packed water, a protein bar and nuts with her wherever she goes. Her favorite lunch right now is cottage cheese with a sliced avocado (protein and fat) and avoiding carbs that would make her sleepy. She also loves a good protein shake. Eliminating carbohydrates at certain times of the day is helpful for her, and she also tends to fast until lunch unless she is playing pickleball in the morning.

LOTUS Family, stay healthy! This was my personal experience. Elimination of gluten and dairy worked great for me, but they may not for you. If you would like to connect, please let us know below.