Be Well Functional Medicine

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Be Well Functional Medicine

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Alicja is an Internal Medicine turned Functional Nurse Practitioner with over 10 years of experience who strives to uncover the root causes of your hormone imbalance and address them holistically.

10/15/2026

🥤 Could your daily sugary drink be affecting more than your blood sugar?

A long-term study involving more than 112,000 adults found that people who drank at least one sugar-sweetened beverage daily had approximately 2.45 times the risk of developing stomach cancer compared with those who drank these beverages less than once a month.

But there’s an important distinction: association doesn't mean causation. The study was observational, so it cannot prove that sugary drinks directly cause stomach cancer. More research is needed to understand this connection.

What we do know is that frequent consumption of sugary drinks can contribute to excess sugar intake and may affect blood sugar regulation, insulin sensitivity, metabolic health, and overall diet quality.

Over time, everyday habits can add up. 🌿

Prevention isn't about making every choice perfectly. It's about recognizing patterns that may influence your long-term health and making sustainable changes where you can.

At Be Well Functional Medicine, we believe small, consistent steps combined with understanding your individual health needs can help support your well-being over time. 💚

📰 Read more about the study: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260909005207.htm

10/14/2026

🤕 Do your headaches always show up around 2 or 3 p.m.?

You know the feeling. The headache, pressure behind your eyes, or dull ache that makes it harder to focus just as the afternoon rolls around.

When headaches keep showing up around the same time each day, the pattern may offer some helpful clues. 🔎

Here are a few factors worth exploring:

🥗 Blood sugar: Did your lunch include enough protein, fiber, and healthy fats to help keep your energy steady?

🌸 Hormones: Estrogen fluctuations around ovulation, before your period, or during perimenopause may make some women more prone to headaches or migraines.

🩸 Iron levels: Heavy periods can contribute to iron deficiency, which may occur alongside headaches, fatigue, or dizziness.

😴 Sleep: Poor or disrupted sleep can make you more susceptible to headaches the following day.

Headaches can have many causes, and these factors are just some of the possibilities. The key is understanding your individual symptoms and what may be contributing to them.

At Be Well Functional Medicine, we look beyond the symptom to explore the bigger picture, including your daily patterns, menstrual cycle, lab results, and overall health. 🌿

If recurring headaches are becoming part of your routine, book a consultation with our team so we can explore the pattern and discuss the next steps together.

10/13/2026

🌿 In perimenopause, your hormones may be part of the answer.

We often think of perimenopause in terms of changing periods, hot flashes, sleep disruptions, and mood swings. But the hormonal shifts happening during this stage can affect much more than you might expect.

❤️ Changes in estrogen can influence how your body processes cholesterol, responds to insulin, stores fat, and supports cardiovascular health.

That means unexpected changes in LDL cholesterol, triglycerides, blood sugar, or other metabolic markers may be worth exploring as part of a bigger picture.

🔎 Your lab results don't exist in isolation. Understanding how hormonal changes may be influencing your metabolic and cardiovascular health can help you make more informed decisions about your well-being.

Our latest blog breaks down the connection between perimenopause, cholesterol, hormones, and cardiometabolic health in simple, easy-to-understand terms.

👉 Read the full blog to learn what may be happening behind the numbers: https://bewellfunctionalmed.com/post/what-perimenopause-can-do-to-your-cholesterol-and-heart-health

Because understanding your hormones is an important part of understanding your health. 💚

10/10/2026

🍂 Roasted Butternut Squash Soup with Ginger + Coconut Milk 🥣

Creamy, comforting, and perfect for a crisp fall day! This cozy soup combines naturally sweet roasted butternut squash with warming ginger, aromatic spices, and creamy coconut milk for a nourishing seasonal meal. 🌿

🥕 Ingredients:
1 large butternut squash, peeled and cubed
1 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp fresh ginger, grated
3 cups vegetable or chicken broth
1 cup full-fat coconut milk
½ tsp cinnamon
Salt and pepper to taste

👩🍳 Instructions:

-Roast the squash: Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C). Toss the cubed squash with a little olive oil and roast for 25–30 minutes, until tender and lightly caramelized.

-Build the flavor: In a pot, sauté the onion, garlic, and ginger in olive oil until softened and fragrant.

-Simmer: Add the roasted squash, broth, cinnamon, salt, and pepper. Simmer for 10 minutes.

-Blend until smooth: Carefully blend the soup until creamy.

-Add the coconut milk: Stir in the coconut milk and warm through. Serve hot and enjoy! 🍲

✨ A little seasonal comfort in every bowl! Butternut squash provides fibre and beta-carotene, while ginger adds a warming kick and coconut milk brings a rich, creamy texture.

Save this recipe for your next cozy meal! 🍁

10/09/2026

🌿 Digestive Enzymes: Do You Really Need Them?

Digestive enzymes can be helpful, but bloating, gas, or feeling heavy after meals doesn't automatically mean you need them.

Different enzymes serve different purposes. 🔎

🥛 Lactase helps break down lactose for people who have difficulty digesting it.

🩺 Pancreatic enzymes are used when the pancreas doesn't produce enough enzymes to properly digest food.

🥑 Bile support may be considered in specific situations where fat digestion is impaired, depending on the underlying cause.

Broad-spectrum digestive enzyme blends are different. They may help some people feel better after meals, but symptom relief doesn't necessarily tell us why those symptoms are happening.

If you regularly rely on enzymes just to tolerate food, it may be worth looking deeper at what's going on. Factors like gut motility, food intolerances, gallbladder or pancreatic function, medications, constipation, and other digestive issues may all play a role.

At Be Well Functional Medicine, we believe digestive symptoms deserve more than a quick fix. Understanding the underlying factors can help guide a more personalized approach to gut health. 🧩

The goal isn't just to manage symptoms and it's to understand what's contributing to them.

10/08/2026

🥚 How much protein do you really need?

Protein plays an important role in muscle maintenance, recovery, blood sugar regulation, satiety, healthy aging, and many other functions. 💪

But your ideal intake depends on several factors, including your body size, age, activity level, health status, and personal goals.

For many adults, the basic recommended dietary allowance (RDA) of 0.8 g/kg of body weight per day is considered the minimum needed to meet basic requirements and not necessarily the ideal target for everyone.

Active adults, older adults, and those looking to preserve or build muscle may benefit from higher intakes, often around 1.2–1.6 g/kg per day, depending on individual needs.

But here’s the thing: more protein isn't always better. ⚖️

If increasing protein means cutting back on fibre, vegetables, healthy fats, or overall food variety, your diet may become less balanced. 🌿

Digestion, kidney function, appetite, total calorie intake, and the quality of your protein sources also matter.

The goal isn't simply to eat more protein. It's to get enough to support your body's needs, spread it throughout the day, and pair it with a diverse, nutrient-dense diet.

At Be Well Functional Medicine, we look at the bigger picture because good nutrition is about how all the pieces work together. 🔎

10/07/2026

Recovery is influenced by much more than the workout itself. 🏋️♀️

Your stress response, sleep quality, blood sugar regulation, nutrient status, inflammation, hormone balance, and overall energy availability can all affect how well your body adapts to exercise. 🧠💤

When stress is consistently high, your body may have fewer resources available for repair and recovery. You may notice more soreness, disrupted sleep, lower energy, reduced exercise tolerance, or slower progress. ⚡

Exercise is an important part of health, but your ability to benefit from it depends on how supported the rest of your physiology is.

Sometimes improving recovery means changing the workout. Other times, it means looking more closely at what’s happening outside the gym. 🔎

Your body isn’t just responding to your workouts. It’s responding to everything happening around them. 🌿

09/30/2026

Supplements can absolutely have a place in a thoughtful health plan. 💊 But it is surprisingly easy for that plan to grow one bottle at a time.

You start magnesium for sleep. 😴
Vitamin D after a low lab. 🧪
A probiotic for digestion. 🦠
Something for stress.
Something for hormones.
Then a friend sends you a podcast and suddenly there are four more. 😅

A few months later, nobody remembers why half of them are still there.

This is where regular supplement reviews matter. 🔎

Ask yourself:
💊 What are you taking?
🎯 Why are you taking it?
📏 Is the dose still appropriate?
⚠️ Could anything be interacting with medications or other supplements?
📈 Are you still getting a benefit?
❓ Does it even need to stay in the plan?

More bottles do not automatically mean more support. Sometimes the smartest thing you can do is clean up the plan and make sure every supplement has a clear purpose. 🌱

09/29/2026

A sudden change in appetite can be easy to brush off. Maybe you are suddenly hungry all the time. 🍽️ Maybe food sounds less appealing than usual. Maybe your cravings feel completely different.

Those changes can actually give us useful information. 🔎

Appetite is influenced by a surprisingly long list of things, including blood sugar, sleep, stress, hormones, medications, activity levels, digestion, and how much you are eating overall.

Poor sleep, for example, can affect the hormones involved in hunger and fullness, which may leave you feeling hungrier the next day. 😴

High stress can go either direction. Some people want to eat everything in sight. Others lose their appetite completely. 😣

A big increase in exercise without enough fuel can also show up as stronger hunger, cravings, low energy, or poor recovery. 🏋️♀️

And if appetite suddenly drops for no obvious reason, especially if it comes with unintentional weight loss, nausea, pain, or other symptoms, that deserves medical attention. ⚠️

If your appetite has noticeably changed and stayed that way, we should talk. Book your consultation and let's get to the root cause. 🌱

09/28/2026

Cramping is common. 🌸 Pain that regularly knocks you out, keeps you home, disrupts sleep, or makes bowel movements painful deserves more attention.

Endometriosis is a condition where tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows outside the uterus, and symptoms can look different from person to person.

One reason diagnosis can take so long is that these symptoms often get separated into different boxes:

🩸 “Bad periods.”
🦠 “IBS.”
💢 “Pelvic tension.”
⚖️ “Just hormones.”

When they keep showing up together, the pattern matters. 🔎

If your cycle is regularly interfering with work, exercise, sleep, s*x, or daily life, book a consultation so we can look at the full picture and help guide appropriate evaluation and care. 🌱

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Charlotte, NC

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http://bewellfunctionalmed.com/, http://bewellfunctionalmed.com/book-now

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