Today we celebrate Mother´s Day here in Spain (we celebrate it the first Sunday in the month of May). So I´ve got my presents - these lovely flowers that I will plant today - so today I will be working in my garden a lot (tomatoes to be raised, we have to prune some trees and plant some more herbs). I hope you all have a beautiful Sunday and share some photos to see what you are up to :))

We have some recently joined members so let's welcome them and level them up! @Judith Leroy Esvan @Jan Bürger @Suzana Topalović @Maurice Chism @Sandy Bartlett

In the Mojave desert, the rains arrive in late summer like a long-overdue promise. After months of cracked earth and merciless heat, the clouds finally break open and the rain pours down and the ground does something that defies every instinct. It refuses to drink. Geologists call this hydrophobicity. The extreme heat, combined with resins released by desert plants, creates an invisible waxy crust on the surface of the soil. The rain lands, beads up and rolls away. The harder it pours, the faster the water escapes. The earth has simply forgotten how to receive the rain. Something almost identical happens inside the human body when it develops insulin resistance, and understanding the parallel may be one of the most useful things we can do for our long-term health. Every time we eat, the pancreas releases insulin, a hormone that functions as a biological key. It travels through the bloodstream to our cells, fits into a specific receptor, and turns it, allowing glucose to enter and be burned as energy. In a healthy body, this is an elegant, almost effortless choreography. A meal arrives, insulin rises gently, cells open, energy flows in, and the signal quiets. Like rain falling on soft soil, everything is absorbed in its own time. But our modern food environment has fundamentally changed our metabolism. When we consistently eat highly processed carbohydrates and added sugars - things that break down almost instantly into glucose - the insulin signal never gets to quiet. And just as the desert soil develops its waxy crust as a response to relentless heat, our cells begin to protect themselves from the relentless flood of insulin by pulling their receptors inward. They grow numb to the signal. This is insulin resistance - and it is important to understand that it is not a failure of the body. It is the body doing exactly what a body does: adapting to its environment, protecting itself from what it perceives as excess. The cell, overwhelmed by a constant influx of energy it cannot process, locks its own door. The problem is that a protective adaptation, sustained long enough, becomes its own disease.

Good morning, beautiful people! It´s Monday, it´s the last week of April and we are in our last week of the GUT GlowUp Challenge. So, what we did so far was 📌 We introduced fiber in our diet in Week 1 📌 We tackled fermented foods in Week 2 📌 We increased hydration in Week 3 📌 And now in Week 4 we are ready to build a Prebiotic Plate (which is basically a process of feeding the bacteria we introduced through fiber and ferments) 🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑 How to build the "Prebiotic Plate": - The Base: Asparagus or sautéed leeks . - The Flavor: Heavy use of raw or lightly cooked leeks, garlic or onions. - The Carb: Cold potato salad (cooking and then cooling potatoes creates Resistant Starch). - The Topping: Green leaves (dandelion, nettles, rocket salad, watercress etc) or Jerusalem artichokes (sunchokes) shaved into a salad. - The Snack after the meal: A slightly under-ripe (greenish) banana. 🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑 So, let´s begin the last week and let me know how your probiotic plate looks like 🤩

I have been making more conscious decisions when shopping. I’m paying more attention when I shop, trying to get more protein in, adding things like nuts for fibre, and checking labels more to avoid added sugars and overly processed stuff. Nothing drastic, just small changes that actually feel doable… and I’m sticking with them. I am feeling much better for it with more energy! 💕 It’s nice being in a space that makes you think a bit more about what you’re doing without it feeling overwhelming. What changes have you been making and how do you feel?