Welcome to Summit Wellness!

We are excited to share our vision and hope to help you in your wellness journey. Summit wellness was born out of our desire to help patients through both any needed surgical journey as well as their lifelong spine health. I have the opportunity to participate in the wellness program as part of that vision. We are launching Summit Wellness with a number of helpful components that you can find on our main website including this blog where we will periodically share helpful information related to wellness, particularly in the context of orthopedic pain, surgery, recovery, healing, and longevity.  For our initial message, I wanted to share a brief introduction to myself, our program, and a few thoughts about nutrition, activity, and wellness. I also wanted to share a few introductory points about pain, and how lifestyle can help.

My journey with nutrition started as a senior in high school as I was deciding on a major. My grandpa was a dentist and gentleman farmer, who really loved farming. He introduced the idea of food as a career path that could make a difference. As others shared thoughts and ideas, Dietetics emerged as the right path for me. I have loved learning about how our bodies use food, enjoyed nutrition as a career and found it has made a huge impact in my life with my family in working through their unique needs. Later I wanted to add a different dimension and studied the impact of exercise and activity on how our bodies use the nutrients we take in. That combination of giving our bodies the right nutrients and the activity to incorporate them is key to a longer, healthier life.

Everyone needs food. Everyone needs essential nutrients on a regular basis. And everyone has “stuff” that can complicate getting the food and nutrients they each need. That “stuff” can range from food availability to social pressures to chronic diseases to mental health challenges to allergies and intolerances to simply the effect of our tastes and preferences. And it’s not like you only get one thing on that list, or that there aren’t more things to add. Food can be complicated, and sometimes you might need some help sorting out those complications. I love helping people through that process and giving them the tools and confidence to develop lifelong healthy eating patterns.

One of the complications Summit patients often deal with is pain. Think for a minute about all the ways pain can influence what you eat. For some people, food is a way to temporarily mask the pain. Pain not only makes us want the foods that make pain worse, but it also makes it hard to prepare foods and shop. Pain makes some people not want to eat at all and makes others overeat for those short-term mental bursts sugary foods can provide. Pain makes it easier to choose highly refined foods as they don’t require preparing and are shelf-stable so you can avoid the pain of moving. Isn’t it annoying how the things that make us feel better long term are harder than the things that make us worse? Breaking the downward spiral pain causes is hard, but taking small steps to improve nutrition goes a long way toward helping.

Personally, I have had several experiences with concussion.  During those times, chocolate was the greatest temptation because it helped the headache go away... for a little while. Chocolate can be a great source of nutrients including magnesium, zinc, iron, phosphorus, and copper as well as several phytochemicals like flavanols, flavonoids and polyphenols. We can talk about all of chocolate’s good points later.  The problem is that it also includes fat and sugar, and in large amounts those can add up. Despite making you feel good for a few minutes, high fat, high sugar foods actually slow healing and makes the pain worse for the long term. It can be really hard to see past that when you are hurting. A healthy diet high in fruits, vegetables, and foods containing omega 3 fats are actually going to heal that concussion and that healing takes away the pain in a more enduring way. Learning what foods have a positive impact and having someone support you through making those heathier choices can make a big difference.

Physical activity goes hand in hand with nutrition. This is why I added exercise physiology to my nutrition degrees, and I have lots of physical therapist colleagues I refer people to for their expertise in different chronic and acute challenges that can make exercise hard but especially important. Think about how food and exercise, or the lack of exercise can add to pain. We increase weight, add inflammation, and lose muscle mass to support our bodies when we miss out on the exercise and overeat - especially overeating the more refined foods. It can be hard to change, but I love sharing the tools to help people make the changes they need for their personal circumstances.

Nutrition and exercise are vital parts of a healthy lifestyle leading to a longer, happier, and more productive life. Everyone is different, so there needs to be room for adjustments to the big picture of those healthy patterns. I love to help find the best path for people to find that healthier pattern. 

Best,

Dr. Jennifer Bowden