Gift #8: Nourish with Missing Nutrients
Step #8: Nourish with Missing Nutrients
Every cell in your body depends on a steady supply of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and healthy fats to function at its best. Yet even with a seemingly healthy diet, it’s easy to fall short—leaving you with nutrient gaps that can quietly drain energy, slow healing, and impact everything from hormone balance to immune strength. Replenishing these missing nutrients is about more than avoiding deficiency—it’s about restoring the raw materials your body needs for digestion, detoxification, cellular repair, and overall vitality. When your nutrient stores are full, your body operates with greater resilience, you recover faster, and you feel more deeply nourished. This is the foundation for lasting health and longevity.
“Be not afraid of growing slowly; be afraid only of standing still.” ~Chinese Proverb
From Deficiency to Deep Nourishment
Replace Missing Nutrients
When your body is running low on key nutrients, everything from your energy to your sleep, mood, and digestion can be affected. Even subtle nutrient insufficiencies—not just severe deficiencies—can ripple through multiple systems, slowing down the very processes that keep you healthy. Every enzyme reaction, hormone pathway, detox channel, and nerve signal depends on specific vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and healthy fats. Without them, your body can’t perform at its best, no matter how clean your diet is.
Take vitamin B6, for example—it’s essential for converting tryptophan into serotonin and then into melatonin, the hormone that helps regulate sleep. Without enough active B6 (pyridoxal-5'-phosphate), this pathway can slow down, influencing both mood and sleep timing. And magnesium? It supports sleep by calming the nervous system—enhancing GABA activity and preventing overstimulation through NMDA receptor regulation. It also helps the pineal gland, where melatonin is made, function more effectively. When either nutrient runs low, melatonin production and sleep quality can suffer, making it harder to drift off and wake feeling truly restored.
Or consider vitamin B12. When B12 is low, methylation slows, which can impair detoxification and potentially lead to toxin buildup. It may also cause elevated homocysteine levels, increasing cardiovascular risk, and affect hormone balance by reducing estrogen metabolism. Common symptoms include mood changes, brain fog, and anxiety. Fatigue is also common, as methylation is required to produce SAMe—the body’s primary methyl donor—essential for neurotransmitter balance, detoxification, and many cellular processes that influence energy and mood. Increasing foods rich in B12—like salmon, turkey, grass-fed beef, lamb, and pastured eggs—or using a high-quality sublingual methylcobalamin can restore energy, clarity, and detox efficiency.
Vitamin C is another quiet powerhouse. Your cells require it for collagen production, immune defense, and antioxidant protection. Even without scurvy, low vitamin C can mean slower wound healing, easier bruising, and weakened immunity. Citrus fruits, berries, bell peppers, and broccoli all help refill this critical nutrient, supporting stronger connective tissue, better immune resilience, and a brighter complexion.
Replacing missing nutrients isn’t just about taking a multivitamin, it’s about intentionally restoring what your body is lacking with the right foods and targeted supplements. The result? More energy, deeper sleep, faster healing, and a stronger foundation for long-term health.
Listen to Your Body’s Signals
Your body speaks in signals—cravings, symptoms, and subtle shifts in how you feel—and learning to interpret them changes everything. Fatigue, restless nights, recurring infections, or changes in skin, hair, and mood are your body’s way of asking for specific nutrients.
Sugar cravings, for example, may point to low magnesium, chromium, or B vitamins needed for energy production. Trouble falling asleep could mean you need more magnesium, B6, or tryptophan-rich foods. A pale tongue, brittle nails, or lightheadedness may point to low iron. Frequent infections can be a signal for more vitamin C, zinc, or vitamin D.
Instead of ignoring these signs or labeling them as “bad,” see them as invitations to nourish yourself more deeply. That afternoon slump may be your body asking for balanced blood sugar support from protein and healthy fats. A sudden craving for citrus could be a nudge toward vitamin C. Desire for red meat might be a call for more iron or zinc. Cravings for seafood may point to an increased need for anti-inflammatory omega-3 fats (DHA and EPA). Your body is incredibly intelligent. It’s always communicating what it needs, your only job is to slow down and listen. Over time, you'll find that your symptoms can become trusted guides on your path back to balance.
These cravings and patterns often appear before lab testing flags an issue. If you’re paying attention, they become an early warning system, or what I like to call your intuitive guidance system. Diets are powerful starting points for learning your body’s language, but the real magic is in daily listening. One nourishing choice becomes two, and soon you’re stacking small shifts into big change.
Balanced, nutrient-dense meals—rich in colorful vegetables, high-quality protein, healthy fats, and mineral-rich seeds and nuts—begin to refill your reserves. Consistency is key. Nutrient testing can help pinpoint gaps, but your body is also constantly giving you feedback. Energy steadies when B vitamins are replenished. Sleep deepens when magnesium and B6 support serotonin and melatonin pathways. Mood stabilizes when omega-3 fats and B vitamins—especially B6, B12, folate, B1, and B3—fuel neurotransmitter production and balance.
Supplements can help bridge the gap, but real transformation happens when nutrient-rich foods become your daily rhythm. Over time, your body shifts from depletion to balance. Healing accelerates. Clarity returns. You begin to trust your body again, noticing that it’s guiding you toward what you need. And it all begins with tuning in—one nourishing choice at a time.
Blog Posts
How to Replenish Nutrient Deficiencies for Energy, Healing, and Longevity
Feeling drained, struggling to heal, or sensing that your health isn’t where it could be? Your body is not a simple machine that runs on calories—it’s a living web of interdependent systems, running thousands of chemical reactions every second. Every muscle you move, every toxin you clear, every hormone you make, every enzyme that converts food to energy requires a steady supply of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and healthy fats. Nutrient insufficiencies can lead to low stomach acid and poorer absorption of nutrients from food, sluggish detoxification, disrupted immune balance, unstable blood sugar, and even increased risk for autoimmunity. Replenishing missing nutrients can begin to restore your energy, support healing, and promote long-term health and longevity.
Change Begins with You: How to Restore Health
Yesterday evening, I taught another live cooking class on the anti-inflammatory diet, and as always, it was an incredible experience to connect with so many people in person. It’s inspiring to witness the motivation and commitment in the room as individuals step forward to reclaim their health through food. Whether someone is just beginning their journey or has been fine-tuning their diet for years, the process of making dietary shifts is both deeply personal and transformative. These classes remind me that healing isn’t just about learning new recipes—it’s about stepping into a new way of being, one that aligns with the health, energy, and vitality we all seek. But making these changes isn't always easy. Letting go of familiar foods and habits can feel like shedding an old identity, especially when certain foods have been a daily part of life for years—or even decades.
12 Tips to Support your Immune System During Cold and Flu Season
Cold and flu season is upon us! How can you support your immune system so it can function at its best? Your immune cells, like all other cells, require good nutrition and lifestyle habits to function properly. A nourishing whole foods diet, strong digestive system, good sleep practices, good hydration, blood sugar control, and the addition of supportive nutritional supplements all work together to promote a strong and functional immune system. Large amounts of nutrients are needed to run your immune cells so they can do their jobs. During cold and flu season, there is an increased need for these nutrients.
Nutrient-Dense Recipes From The Blog
Garlic-Herb Turkey Burgers
If you're navigating an elimination diet and looking for simple, satisfying meals the whole family will love, these garlic-herb turkey burgers are a staple worth keeping on repeat. They're quick to prepare, deeply nourishing, and easy to pair with a variety of vegetables for a balanced, anti-inflammatory meal. I often make turkey burgers once a week—especially during warmer months when lighter, grill-friendly meals feel just right. We love wrapping them in crisp lettuce leaves or tender napa cabbage instead of buns.
Spicy Slow Cooked Beef Stuffed Sweet Potatoes with Avocado-Cilantro Cream
I really love being able to toss ingredients into my slow cooker in the morning in order to have a meal ready to go later in the day, don't you? There's just so much less stress, and I feel so organized, with a clean kitchen going into dinnertime! This recipe for tomato-free, paleo slow cooked beef can be used in a multitude of ways. If you don't want to stuff it into baked sweet potatoes then you could use it as a taco filling for corn tortillas, Brown Rice Flour Tortillas, or simply served with sautéed kale and cabbage!
Raw Orange Creamsicle Smoothie
Anyone remember those orange creamsicle popsicles we enjoyed as children? This frosty dairy-free smoothie captures those flavors and provides a host of nutrients and protein. I got the idea for this smoothie from one of our favorite restaurants, Thrive Cafe, in Seattle. Whenever we are in Seattle or driving through we make a stop there either to dine in or to get take-out for the road. It is a mostly raw, vegan, organic cafe with very reasonable prices. All of the to-go containers are biodegradable too!
Easy Sheet Pan Salmon with Garden Vegetables
Looking for an easy, nutrient-dense meal you can make at the end of a long day? This simple sheet pan meal uses garden vegetables and wild salmon, and it can be prepped and cooked in under 30 minutes! Salmon is a rich source of a carotenoid called astaxanthin. This potent compound is also found in crab, shrimp, lobster, krill, and salmon eggs (roe), however, wild salmon contains the highest concentration of this potent anti-inflammatory compound.
Asparagus, Leek, and Mushroom Frittata
Frittatas are just about one of the easiest, nutrient-dense meals you can make....and they can be whipped up in minutes! Serve a frittata for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. I frequently make frittatas to use up the odd bits of leftovers or random veggies in the fridge.
Berry Cherry Green Smoothie
Okay, this smoothie doesn't look too green now does it? Berries and greens blended up equal brown. Although the color may not look too appetizing, the flavor is amazing! My 4-year old twin boys drink it with a straw. They now race to see who is done first.
Chicken & Wild Rice Salad with Tangerines & Hazelnuts
This simple grain salad is something I like to make when I cook a whole chicken for soup. I will save some of the breast meat for enchiladas or salads like this one. Now, if you are vegan please read on to see what I do to make this salad sans meat.
Wild Rice Stuffing
The past few years I have made a delicious, savory, gluten-free wild rice stuffing for the big Thanksgiving Day turkey. We always use half of it to stuff the turkey, while the other half gets baked in a casserole dish. I have not had a recipe for this until today; I usually just toss it all together until it tastes just right.
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