You’ve Tried It All

Scenario:

You just turned 36. Maybe 46. You are pretty healthy and somewhat active. You enjoy the gym a few times a week with friends.

Parent of 2.

Wife. Husband. Caregiver. Friend.

You eat relatively well, although admittedly you could do better. You don’t LOVE veggies, but you enjoy a good salad a few times a week, eat chicken breast as your primary protein source, and you try to eat plant-based most of the time because that’s what everyone seems to be saying is the way to be your healthiest.

You have a wicked sweet tooth.

In the 2000s you gave up gluten because that was the thing to do. In 2010, you began noticing that every time you had a latte or cereal, your stomach hurt. You gave up milk because your bestie said it had helped her.

It did help.

As you creep towards the big 3-5, you began to feel like more and more foods were causing you pain or discomfort.

You are constipated.

You rarely sleep through the night. Coffee is your best friend.

Recent blood work indicated that your glucose was higher than it should be and your cholesterol numbers were not optimal.

Your MD said that you are fine. Eat less fat. Exercise more. You are just getting older.

You asked if you should do food sensitivity testing you’ve read about and he said no, that’s not proven to help with anything.

So, here you are, 36, feeling worse by the year, with no plan to get better.

Sound like anyone you know?

Me too.

This scenario is all too common in my practice.

“I’m getting more sensitive to food/scents as I get older.”

“I gave up ______ (list any food) and initially felt better, but now I’m feeling bloated/in pain/gassy/tired again.”

“I’ve given up so many foods I don’t know what to eat.”

“I took a probiotic but didn’t notice anything.”

“I took all the supplements my doctor gave me, which initially helped, but after a few months I stopped feeling better.”

“I HAVE TRIED IT ALL.”

How you are feeling is not a byproduct of getting older, so let’s just get that out in the open. Nor is it inevitable. Getting older doesn’t mean that you should start reacting to foods that you’ve eaten your whole life.

And even more upsetting than seeing this trend in adults is seeing the same trend in children.

And it’s entirely misunderstood.

It’s all in the gut.

I’m sure you’ve heard this. If you’ve been here long enough, you’ve likely heard me talk about it. But what does it mean?

It means that years of eating foods that are less than ideal, matched with a crazy amount of environmental toxins all around us, a little genetics tossed in, has created a weakening in our gut. It can no longer manage all we are throwing at it.

But it’s not only in the gut.

Our liver is incredibly important in healing our bodies and it is almost ALWAYS overlooked by traditional practitioners.

(I say “always” because there is probably a doctor out there who is looking at it in the context of gut health, but I have yet to meet him or her).

It’s actually not ALL in the gut.

If your liver is clogged or sluggish (hint: it probably is if you are alive right now and reading this) your body cannot detoxify, period. And if you cannot detoxify, eventually you are going to see symptoms that range the gambit from fatigue to indigestion to eczema to autoimmune disease and literally everything in between.

We are unique individuals and your body’s response to clogged detox pathways is going to be different than mine.

It’s not the food’s fault.

We are SO quick to blame food.

“I can’t eat eggs anymore.”

“Now I’m reacting to legumes.”

“Oxalates are the devil. Can’t eat them”

“Low FODMAP is the only diet I can be on without digestive pain.”

I could go on.

It’s not the food’s fault. Period.

We always jump to blaming food or the types of food. But no whole food is inherently good or bad for your body. When we react to a food, it’s a signal. A wake-up call if you will.

It’s your body trying to get your attention.

“Hey, over here! Something is wrong! Your gut is on fire!! A little help please?”

Yes, we often have to stop eating the aggravating food temporarily, but that’s not a long-term solution. It is a short-term bandaid.

Let me repeat: just removing the food ISN’T ENOUGH.

More work has to be done to heal whatever is going on in your system (gut or liver) so that hopefully that food isn’t off your shopping list forever.

It’s all figure-outable.

There was a great book written a few years ago called Everything is Figure-Outable by Marie Forleo. It’s a great book, but I was struck by the title.

Everything IS figure outable. You just have to find someone who is willing to dig into the weeds with you.

Some of the ways that we dig into root cause medicine:

• Labs: I LOVE testing. My science nerd brain gets insanely excited when I’ve got lab charts and numbers in front of me. That said, labs are only helpful if you are stuck or you believe the results will dictate a change in the plan of care.

• Food logs: Boy can I learn A LOT from a 3-day food log. So much juicy insight.

• Water testing: I love looking at the EWG website to explore what is in people’s tap water that they may not realize.

• Drainage and Detox protocols: There are times I start with this before we even do testing. Opening up the drainage pathways (liver, skin, urine, stool) and doing anywhere from 1-4 months of detox will often resolve or significantly improve symptoms. This can be a really helpful tool to figure out what is happening in the body without having to do tons of testing.

• Food elimination trials: Now, I do NOT believe that most people need to live on a very limited diet. If you keep reacting to more and more new foods, there is a deeper issue. BUT I will have clients pull out certain foods to see what happens to the body. It’s like a science experiment. Does the clients sometimes have to restrict a food permanently? Yes, but it’s rare. Most can begin to incorporate most foods back in, being mindful of how much they can tolerate.

• Measuring and tracking hormones such as insulin and cortisol will reveal a LOT about why someone isn't able to optimize health. 

• Other things that may come up are EMFs, repeated toxic exposures, sleep, and trauma. We dig into those on an as needed basis.

If you are that person who feels like you have to keep restricting more and more foods, I am hopefully going to be able to persuade you to see a professional ASAP. This is a sign that your immune system is on overdrive and you are headed down a path that ends with autoimmune disease.

A holistic and functional approach to health is NOT a quick fix. It can actually be quite slow, depending on how severe and prolonged your symptoms are. It’s methodical. It’s patient. It’s calculated.

The goal is not just to get you feeling better quickly.

The goal is to get you feeling better for the rest of your life. And to give you the tools you need to stay on that path and empower others to do the same.

It’s all figure outable.

I’m here to help you figure it out.