Join the conversation with Dr. Ana Lara and Christina Lombardo, certified holistic nutritionist and her unique approach to helping people with addiction and trauma using nutrition. We will discuss how healthy food choices can help heal and restore the nervous system. Substance abuse Nervous system health practices, healing the body from the inside out. What we eat makes a difference Food is one of the main ways that causes inflammation in the body, Food sensitivities that go unknown, how sensitivities show up in the body. Foods that cause inflammation How food is such an emotional decision when making changes. The challenges of customizing meals per person. Other ways to help the nervous system to slow down to recover. How people coming off substance abuse turn to sugar, and how to help them with food. Disclosure: This content is for educational purposes; this is not intended to treat anyone medically or physiologically. You need to speak to your doctor or therapist for guidance. Contact information for Christina Lombardo: Website https://nutritionwellnessaz.com/.
Podcast Episode 25 Transcript
Welcome to Physician Heal Thyself, the podcast empowering you to take a whole-person approach to your well-being, spirit, soul, and body. Join me your host, Dr. Ana Lara, nature pathic, doctor, entrepreneur, and a servant of Jesus Christ. We are not just a body. We are spirit and soul. It’s time to integrate medicine and spirituality into our healing. Let’s get started. Welcome to Physician Heal Self, the podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Alara. Today I have a guest who’s going to be joining me and we’re going to be talking about the importance of nutrition in healing, trauma and addiction. Christina Lombardo is a certified holistic nutritionist and evox practitioner. She’s been a nutritionist since 2018 and specializes in trauma and substance use recovery. So help me welcome Christina. Hi, Christina.
Hello.
How are you?
Good.
Thank you for joining me on this podcast. When I first met you and I asked you what did you do, I was really blown away by the unique approach that you have with nutrition. So why don’t you share a little bit with our audience, how do you integrate nutrition into the work that you do? But before you do that, tell us a little bit about yourself and what led you to become a nutritionist.
Yeah, so my journey, I’m sure like so many others, is long and condensing it down can be a little bit difficult, but I really was introduced to the idea that food shifted not just our body but our mental state. When I was 12 years old, I had insomnia and so I used to stay up really late and watch infomercials there was a woman, Susan Powders, and I call her the Stop the Insanity lady because she would always be yelling on stage about how we need to stop the insanity. And she walked through food labels like I had never seen anybody do before, and she was like, these things are not healthy. Here’s how you read a food label. And the thing that really blew me away was everything that she was showing as an example of what was not healthy was everything in my fridge.
And I realized at 12 I have zero control over what’s purchased and brought into my house. But at that point, I decided I was going to stop eating meat. She was not an advocate of that. I just decided I’m going to stop eating meat. And began this journey of digging into natural practices, holistic practices, homeopathy, what I can do to fix and heal myself, really using myself as a Guinea pig. And then, when I got into my twenties and into my thirties, my body began to fail completely. Cholesterol was super high. Blood pressure would go really high, really low. I was having anxiety, panic attacks, and struggling with depression. I had actually been on suicide watch twice. The doctors were really not offering anything to help. And so I began researching like mad; what is going on with me? I ended up seeing a naturopath and of course, that was my last resort.
I was like, I’ve tried everything. So, I see the natural path as my last resort. And within six weeks, my hormones began to balance out. My cholesterol dropped from two 20 to 1 65, and I began this journey of healing and I’m like, there really is something more to this. So I know that we will get more into the nitty gritty of certain things, but really seeing that nutrition can take you so far, supplements can take you so far, but if your nervous system is not balanced, and it was eventually diagnosed with post-traumatic stress and complex post-traumatic stress and nothing was working anymore. The nutrition, the supplements, nothing. So I had to delve into nervous system health just for myself. And then really began to, I’m like, I have done enough research in enough studying, I should really get some certifications in this. So I went back to school, became certified and decided the easy thing to do is help people lose weight. But I was very unsatisfied with that. And so after a few years of doing that, I closed that business down, took a year hiatus, and went and worked for somebody else and then came back to the drawing board and was like, I genuinely feel called to work in trauma and substance use. I know what it’s like to struggle and suffer and have no answers. And to look up on Google and they’re like, you can take medications. And I am not. I actually tried medications, and I was allergic to everything,
So, everything gave me migraines or serious side effects. So I was like, okay, that’s not an option for me. So, finding supplements, finding and discovering nervous system health practices and really working on healing the body from the inside out and then using that to help others. And then I was like, you know what? I should do this for work, not just me. There are definitely more people who need this.
Yeah, it’s unfortunate that it’s more often than not that I hear people say, my last option, my endpoint, was seeing a naturopathic doctor where I truly believe, I mean, I’m going to be a little biased now because of what I know, but that should be the starting point. If you have a chronic disease, if you’re having difficulty with mental health, whatever it is, working with a naturopathic doctor to begin even preventative-wise before you end up with issues is really the way to start. And I really try to be cautious, Christina, about not bashing the conventional medical system because there’s a time and place for that. However, I personally don’t want to be an experiment or go by trials to see when I can find the right doctor to help me. I’d rather go straight to the right doctor to help me. I personally went through 10 different doctors before I got to the naturopathic doctor who helped me 10 doctors. And my understanding was this person was not hearing me. They’re not giving me the solutions that I need to get to, so I’m going to fire them and I’m going to move on to the next doctor that is going to help me. It shouldn’t take a person that many times to find help. These are intelligent people who should understand how the body works. But the key thing that I continuously see that is lacking in the brains of these doctors is the understanding of the importance of what food does in our body for all people of all conditions, healthy or not.
I work with cancer patients; I might have shared this with you, and sometimes they’ll tell me on their own. They’ll tell me, I asked my doctor, what should I eat? What should I not eat? And they say, oh, you kidding, anything. And I know your brain is like firecrackers are going off. I feel the same way. I’m like, you have cancer. There’s tons of inflammation in your body. There’s a reaction that’s happening. And so what I love about what you do is that you’re looking at this demographic of individuals that are oftentimes the professionals they come across, they’re neglecting this area that’s important, which is the nutrition part. Whether the trauma is physical trauma to the brain, whether it’s psychological trauma that they’ve had, whether it’s substance abuse, trauma that they have, that the nervous system needs to heal and recover, and what we eat makes a difference. Huge difference. I’ve had previous episodes where I talk about the foundations of health and the importance of nutrition as one of the pillars. One of the main pillars that food as we understand it is it’s the building blocks to everything of who we are physically.
But what I like that you pointed out is that there is sometimes a point that you realize as a practitioner and even as an individual that we realize healthy eating, exercising, the herbs, all of these supplements have taken me this far, and there’s still like a roadblock. There’s still something else that is going on, and that’s when we have to look at trauma. We have to unpack that and heal through that to help the nervous system to restore itself. So when you work with, I want to talk about, let’s discuss a little bit about how important food is, how food impacts the brain and the nervous system function. So let’s talk a little bit about that. What’s your take on that?
Yeah, so food is one of the main ways that we cause inflammation in our bodies. And there are several foods that cause inflammatory reactions. So dairy, for example, can be one of ’em. If you have problems with dairy, then you should probably not consume it. A lot of people don’t realize that they have an allergy to dairy until they remove it from their diet.
So, I genuinely didn’t know I had a dairy allergy until I went and saw a practitioner. She did some scans on me, and she said, did you know you’re just as allergic to dairy, even more so allergic to dairy than you are to wheat? I was like, I really, so I thought, let me just cut it out of my diet for a month and see how I feel. And, of course, over a month, I didn’t really notice too much. And then I thought, okay, I’m going to have a dairy fest, and I’m going to have one day where I consume dairy with every single meal, and then I’ll see how I feel I could barely move the next day.
A lot of people don’t realize they have that sensitivity to dairy and other foods. It’s very common when I tell my patients I want you to remove these top five foods from your diet. They’re like, oh, but I don’t have a problem with dairy. No, you don’t. You don’t know you have a problem with dairy. You might not have digestive symptoms that you notice, but when you remove something from the body, the body has detoxed itself from that substance just like a drug. And then you haven’t had exposure, say, for a month to that food. Then, when we’ve introduced the food, boom, if you have a problem with it, it’s going to show up.
Oh my gosh. Yeah.
I know what ways it shows up. How do you tell your patients these are the ways that it can show up as a sensitivity?
Yes. So I actually had one client contact me, and they said, I’m having symptoms of acid reflux. I’m not quite sure what I’m eating, but I mean, it’s really awful, acid reflux and heartburn. And I said, well, go back to keep a food diary. Go back to the last meal that you ate, break it down by ingredients, and then consume those ingredients individually until you find whatever’s giving you heartburn, which they did. And it ended up being cumin. They said, so what do I do? Do I go buy an acid? And I said, well, no, your body is telling you something. Your body doesn’t like it.
Don’t eat it.
Don’t eat it.
Just don’t eat it. Don’t eat it. That is very difficult, and I know that food is such an emotional conversation with almost all people.
I’m good at telling people what not to eat. Well, and then coming up with suggestions of what to eat.
Everyone is so individualized, and I can tell people, here’s a great meal plan: eat this. But they’re like, I don’t like this, I don’t like that. I don’t like this. And so now that’s where it needs to be customized, and working with someone like you would be a much better option.
Yes. Well, and I ask my clients as well, do you prefer recipes or do you prefer foods to focus on? So, I would say around 50 or 60 curated recipes that I’ve created that have removed a ton of inflammatory foods, or at the bottom of the recipe, it says, here’s all the swaps that you can make so they can customize it to what they like. So I have different recipes that I can cut and paste and send to my clients that are very specific for dietary needs, or if they say, I just want foods to focus on, I don’t really want to, I’m not going to follow recipes, and the recipe is not going to help me. If I’m going out to eat, I don’t know what to order. So I have lists, okay, well if you don’t want to eat this, then eat all these foods, try these foods. Telling my clients as well that allergies and sensitivities show up in different ways. It can be a skin issue, it can be logical.
Yeah, it can be a rash. It can be I ate this, and all of a sudden, I’m confused and I have brain fog. A lot of times, it’s sinus issues or minor sore throats or a little bit of stomach pain and indigestion and learning to listen to our body and slow down enough to notice what it’s doing when we’re eating is huge.
And that’s key. What you said is learning how to slow down. I mean, this is a conversation I have with every new client and even people that I continue to see slow down, slow down, and especially when it comes time to eat, our digestive system is really dependent on our nervous system being calm to eat, to digest properly, because otherwise your body, if you’re under a lot of stress and you’re eating it, thinks it’s fighting a bear. We know that the blood gets shunted to all the extremities because it thinks it needs to go fight or run instead of the blood flow going into the digestive system to start the digestive process. People don’t get that. This is why they get upset. Stomachs when they have an argument with someone and they go eat something, it’s counterproductive. I know my mom in my house would say, don’t get mad when you’re eating because it’s going to be bad for you.
I like that.
In many cultures, they knew that. They didn’t understand the science behind why, but they knew that you don’t eat when you’re angry or upset because it’s going to upset your stomach.
Yeah, I heard somewhere somebody said that being stuck in a fight or flight and trying to eat is trying to eat a sandwich while running from a bear, and I don’t remember who I got that from. But you can’t do brilliant both at the same time. Even if you just go running, you can’t eat and run at the same time.
No, it’s very messy.
So, if you guys are sitting in your car in traffic eating, just think about what that’s doing to you. Might as well not eat. You might as well just pull over and then eat.
Well, and there are, so I’ve had some clients that are single parents that is a different animal altogether.
Finding time to rest and slow down is extremely hard. And so getting into the swing of things where there’s meal prep happening and I’ll walk with people and say, Hey, the first time that you do it, the first time I did it took me eight and a half hours to meal prep, and then I got to the point where it took me two and a half, but I had five lunches, five dinners. If I needed to make more, if there were more people in my house that I was prepping for, then I could do that and it would take two and a half hours. Then you have healthy meals for you, for your children, but it’s a rhythm and a lifestyle change.
It is a lifestyle to get into.
And I think that’s really key right there is that people, I’ve said this in previous episodes, I’ll say it again. People need to just come to the decision of making this a lifestyle change, not a diet that I’m going to do for the next month or two so I can lose weight. Right. So, let’s talk a little bit more about the foods that are highly inflammatory. So I always tell my patients sugar, anything with a lot of sugar, do you distinguish? So I’ll distinguish, I’ll say, refined sugar. Refined sugar depends on the person. Cancer patients, even fruits. I caution them with what fruits. I want them to do the low glycemic fruits that are going to be low in sugar and high in antioxidants and vitamins and minerals, so we will limit that to an amount.
For people with diabetes, I also limit them to that amount, and then that’s the high-starchy foods as well.
Oh, absolutely. We don’t do starches.
They are super popular in the American diet diets. We have to distinguish, I think, nutrition between someone with chronic disease and even mental health. I’ll throw that in there. And even addiction, if someone’s recovering from just someone wanting to lose weight or someone who’s healthy, I often do get asked, why do you reduce so much of these things in someone with cancer? Because these foods feed the cancer, it creates a lot of inflammation, and the body’s already super inflamed.
We need to quiet that noise. We need to quiet the inflammation. So that’s why reducing the refined sugars, but even the sugars and some starchy foods. So maybe no rice, definitely no potatoes and corn. I’ll run down the five or seven foods that I tend to tell my, not that I do tend to, I tell my patients, don’t eat this.
I’m the same way. I’ll tell you. And then I want to hear if that’s where you’re at or if there’s something different. So sugar’s the devil that’s out, whether it’s in a drink or in a food. I talk about reducing that. And if they’re going to have fruit, they have to do local glycemic fruits and minimal, not a lot. The next one is dairy. I agree with you. Dairy, as nature passes, we’re taught how inflammatory it is, how mucus-producing it is. So that’s the second one. The third one is wheat, things with gluten in there. And the reason for gluten is many reasons. They’re in everything. All processed foods have tons of gluten, and so people have developed sensitivities. It’s also heavily sprayed with pesticides, so we don’t want to have those exposures. So if you’re going to get certain types of wheat that’s organic or certain breads that, but you’re still minimizing how much, especially in cancer, metabolic conditions.
I don’t want them eating bread. I just don’t. I want them to really stick with a vegetable and a protein source. Grains here and there, maybe So yeah, so no sugar, no dairy, no gluten products. Corn and soy are fourth and fifth. Corn and soy are also 80, 90% of the corn and soy in this country is genetically and genetically modified organisms are going to affect the way our body works because anytime we interfere with the laws of nature, it’s going to affect the way our bodies function. So those foods, they’re also corn and soy interesting there and everything processed, not just the foods that we eat, but even in beauty products, things we were putting on our skin. So, in sauces and everything, they’re just hidden in so many foods that people have also developed a sensitivity to those foods. The other food category that I discourage is anything with MSG.
It has such a neurotoxic effect on the nervous system that I tell people not to consume foods that have SG in them. And once again, it’s like dairy. Oh, but I don’t ever have a reaction to it. Yeah, because constantly in your body, the moment you remove it, boom, it shows up that the effects of it in your body. I know if I have it, I am knocked out for the day. I’ll have a migraine, and I will be so lethargic I have to fall asleep. And then when I do wake up from that sleep, it is I’m moody and grumpy and irritable. Who wants that? No thanks. So if I ever come across it, it’s by accident and it’s when I eat out. And even if you ask a restaurant like, do you guys use MSG? They’ll say, no, but your body’s going to snitch them out that it did have it. The other food category, and then I’ll let you share yours.
So not everyone has to do this, but if someone comes in with autoimmune conditions, a lot of chronic disease, a lot of pain, joint pain, I’ll tell them, let’s remove NIS shade foods to tomatoes, eggplants beans, peppers, things like that. Because they have lectins and lectins, we know that they cause an agglutination of the red blood cells. And what that means is that your red blood cells will get sticky and come together. And so then if your red blood cells are sticking, they’re not going, your blood is not going to flow the way it should. It’s not going to carry inflammation from one part of the body to the other. And that creates inflammation. That creates pain. And Christina, when people remove these foods, they feel better; swelling, joint pain and swelling is gone, and then we will test it. Let’s introduce tomatoes and see what happens. And then we know for sure, yep, tomatoes do it to me or no, I can eat tomatoes in moderation and I’m okay, but when I eat lentils, Lord Jesus, take the wheel. That’s how you find out. There’s a lot of food sensitivity testing out there. I’m not a big fan of it, unlike some of my colleagues.
I’ve done them enough to see that A, they can be expensive and sometimes they don’t give me enough information. I’d rather do the traditional food elimination diet. Let’s eliminate all these things and introduce one food at a time for three days and see what happens.
Yeah.
So, what are the foods you tell your patients?
So first things, and again, as you said as well, it depends upon what they have, what they’re coming in for, and then goals. And I try not to scare them off too quickly. And because I run through a number of different categories when I sit down with a patient, not a patient, when I sit down with one of my clients, I discuss sleep, stress management, physical activity, nutrition and supplements. And so I really want a whole picture of where they’re at. And so somebody, if we’re able to jump right into the nutrition portion from the get-go, sometimes it’s something else. Sometimes, it’s okay; we can shift some things here dietarily, but we need to focus on some nervous system practices first. But it is almost the same exact list. It is dairy, wheat, which nobody wants to hear, but it is in everything. And I learned that when I stopped eating it, I couldn’t even eat soy sauce anymore, which is horrible. I love Chinese food, dairy, wheat, it’s soy corn and refined sugar, and then distinguishing, if I say just sugar, then people kind of freak out. So it’s that distinguishing factor of we want to remove the refined sugar.
That also is in everything, but it shows up in corn syrup. The one I saw the other day, what is it? It’s like a barley something. It has some name to it, but it’s liquid sugar. And looking at just, I’m looking at granola bars and stuff for hiking.
It’s hard to eat healthy.
Literally, there will be 11 different sugars in something. How important is it that you feel better? Because if you’re so miserable, you’re going to just go back to eating the basics. How our ancestors eat before modern life even happened? Before we had refrigeration, before we had stores, people were growing their food. And when we can go back to the roots, I do believe it’s realistic. I did it and other people have done it, and it’s so difficult to be reading labels all the time.
It’s exhausting.
And then to know what it is, then all the time it’s like, you know what, I’ll just get the broccoli. I know what’s in there, vitamins and minerals, so I’m just going to get that and I’ll get some chicken, some organic chicken. I know what it’s, and I’m good. And be careful with the sauces that you use in the seasonings.
That’s the thing our world here has just become so difficult to just eat simple food.
And I’m a sauce junkie. I have a fridge filled with sauces, but now I make sure what is low to no sugar but does not contain stevia and all of these other fake sugars. I put stevia in the fake sugar, even though a lot of people disagree with me. Say they say they’re going to make some barbecue chicken. Well, the chicken’s fine, but it’s the barbecue sauce that has all the sugar and all the other chemicals in there.
Unless you’re making it yourself, but even then, you’re still using sugar. I know we make it ourselves. There are healthy options. I always say start somewhere and then we’ll refine it from there.
So let’s touch a little bit about when you work with people because working with a very unique demographic.
If you’re having someone who’s recovering from an addiction or trauma, how do you work with them differently versus someone who wants to lose weight?
So typically someone, and I’m going to make broad sweeping strokes here. Absolutely. Typically somebody who is recovering, they have some similar things in common. There can be disassociative behavior that happens. So working on nervous system health and helping them learn to meditate slow down. Everybody wants to jump right into the gym, and I’m like, that’s fantastic. I lift weights. I love the gym. Learning to slow down is really key. So teaching meditation practices, some breath work practices, slow flow yoga, really, how can I get back into this physical space that I’m in to slow down enough to listen to my own body? And then if they want to go ham it out in the gym, fantastic. Some people are in a position where they’re physically ready for that. A lot of times, the nervous system is way too amped up or too slowed down. If somebody is in FA or frozen and they’re stuck, then going into the gym can be extremely overwhelming. And then they leave not doing a whole lot and they feel like they’ve failed, which creates more shame. So getting individuals into the nervous system practices to slow down, getting minerals into their system, A lot of it, and the length of time it takes to heal is mineral deficiencies, gut health, A lot of individuals crave copious amounts of sugar.
Absolutely.
And so reducing refined sugar. So I do a pendulum swing, so it’s okay, let’s get you off refined sugar. Let’s get that out of your diet. And if that means that you need to eat fruit to compensate until you are off the refined sugar, fantastic. And so it’s taken in chunks, okay, you’re no longer eating refined sugar, but you’re consuming way too much food sugar. But we have to do it. It’s a journey.
And that’s a good place to start with someone who has that problem. I’d rather you eat the fruit than eat just candy. That is a very common thing that we see in people who are recovering from a drug addiction is that the sugar stimulates the same part of the brain that the drug does. And so this is why food addiction is the most; food is the most abused drug that we justify it because we have to eat to live. But when we are eating a lot of sugar and processed foods and we become reliant on it like a drug addict that is a drug to us and the sugar is addictive. The MSG is addictive. MSG is terrible; they have umami that they have curated and put in food. That’s why McDonald’s french fries are the perfect palate-pleasing food because they’re scientifically engineered.
I once told the sales rep that I forgot the name of the, but he sold these things that they add in foods and restaurants, and he said, I won’t eat at restaurants. I’m like, why? He said this stuff is super addicting. It should be illegal. I’m like, and you’re selling it.
So I was in the restaurant industry for 17 years, hospitality between restaurants and hotels for 17 years. So I got to see in the back kitchens what they do for food. High-end restaurants are some of the worst, sorry. They are because they soak the McDonald’s french fries. It is a solution of 50% salt and 50% sugar. They make a bath of it and they soak the vegetables in it prior to cooking them so that they’re more palatable.
So people are like, this is so amazing.
It’s interesting.
And I can tell immediately because I react to refined sugar where my skin breaks out, it either tastes too sweet or too salty to me.
You have to request I would like these vegetables specifically, but please make sure that they’re fresh from the fridge and not in the salt bag.
Don’t bathe my vegetables in death.
I ask them, do you use real butter? And they’ll say yes. And I say, no, no, no. Like actual real butter because I know a lot of restaurants, high-end or not, have a five-gallon fat of liquefied butter flavor back there. I’m allergic to it.
You just named the top three things that make food addicting. Do you know that fat, salt, and sugar?
Exactly.
That’s what people crave, and that’s where people are stuck. And if we can pull away slowly at a time, I mean, there are two types of people out there. There’s people like me, they’re like, Nope, all or nothing, I just need to get out. I’ll go through the detox. And then there are people that gradually need to get there. So you need to know what kind of person you are to either gradually remove these things from your diet or just go all in or nothing. You go all in and just get rid of them and then you can later on know what your limits are. I don’t joke around when I say how serious food addiction is because I caught myself in my late twenties, maybe early thirties, realizing I have a food addiction because every time I get stressed, I want to go eat something salty or sweet, usually sweet. And when I was in my early thirties, when I did my first detox, I am going to change my diet. But it was a mindset. It was, I’m going to change my lifestyle of how I eat. I went through a two-week period of detoxing.
I felt like I’ve never done drugs, by the way, never. I don’t even drink alcohol and don’t have an affinity for it, which is rare. I get it. But I felt like a drug addict. I felt like I was being pulled away from my drug. The sugar.
It’s interesting that you say that. I have detoxed from drugs and I’ve detoxed from alcohol, and when I stopped eating wheat, I detoxed off of wheat and it was worse. And for some people, this may be true, for some it may not. For me, it was true detoxing off wheat was worse than detoxing off drugs or alcohol.
Wow.
I was just, I’m done. I got a migraine that lasted two weeks. Nothing I took would even touch the pain. I ended up taking so many NSAIDs that I ended up in the hospital because I had the lining in my stomach inflamed. I couldn’t fit the rings on my fingers because they were so swollen. I couldn’t wear shoes because my feet were so swollen. And in order to just kill the pain enough that I could marginally make it through the day, I would eat a half a piece of bread and then it would subside just a little bit. And then I would go a few more days. Blinding migraine, I mean, not even anything that eating it.
By not eating it, by not having something with wheat, you would have that effect whereas if I had something with wheat, I would have that effect.
So now, after that two-week period was awful, and then it took about a full six months for the inflammation to really calm down in my body. And now if I eat something with wheat in it, it’s immediate, immediate inflammation. My whole back, neck, and shoulders completely spasm and I get a migraine.
I know there’s a lot of a connection with people with addiction. There’s always, almost always, I’ve not seen one person not have the underlying cause have a route to childhood trauma. Something traumatic happened that they’re numbing, they want to numb the pain of feeling that they don’t want to feel that pain. So they turn to a substance. It could be food, it could be alcohol, it could be a drug, it could be many things. But is that what you see with the people that you’re working with? Do you get that far of working in, I mean, I know you’re not a mental health person, but you naturally are a good counselor. So do people get to share that with you? This is where it’s coming from.
They do. And a lot of times I let them know, thank you for sharing. If you would like, I can recommend you to a therapist to help you walk through this. And then giving, which I think is where a lot of the disassociative behavior comes from, that, Hey, here’s some things that we can do to get you back into your body while you’re processing and facing these things. And a lot of times, people will say, well, I don’t want to face it. I’m like, but you can’t. You’re in the storm right now and you can stick your head in the sand, but it’s not going to help. Eventually that storm is going to beat you down and you’re going to have to pull your head out of the sand and face it. And I tell them the same things, the same pep talks. I had to give myself that. The only way through the storm is to walk into it, into it. And we have to face those things that are haunting us. And it’s super scary and it’s very hard. And that, shining light on those dark areas is exactly what takes away their power.
And I think this is where it’s really important: getting help, getting someone to help you walk through that storm.
Pulling you out of the darkness because doing it alone doesn’t work. But I feel like that’s what the devil’s been putting in their mind. Like no one’s there. You got to tough it out on yourself, just run away from it. And it doesn’t work when you’re doing it by yourself. I love the analogy of the water buffalo. Have you heard the analogy? I haven’t. So water buffalo, they say that they don’t like water, interestingly. And so when they see a storm coming, they see the storm coming. What they do is the herd will run towards the storm so they can get through the storm faster instead of running in the opposite direction or just staying stationary.
They just run towards the storm to get through the water faster. And it’s like, wow, what power in that humans, sometimes we don’t do that. We run away from the storm or we get stuck in the storm instead of saying, Hey, I’m just going to run through this because it’s coming at me and I’m running towards it and I’m just going to get through it faster. That’s a healthy person. But when someone’s had constant trauma that you were stuck in the storm through childhood and now you’re an adult, you do need the help. I cannot emphasize enough the importance that the people need to reach out to, whether it’s a nutritionist or a counselor or a doctor that works holistically.
A pastor that can help you through that. Whoever it is a friend, it could just start with a friend, a good friend that can listen to you and can pull you out because you’re not going to get out of it alone. There’s a lot of shame, a lot of guilt, a lot of anger, a lot of emotions that people are carrying in those states that it polarizes them. They cannot see the light and it’s very daunting. So there’s a lot, obviously, we can talk about brain recovery. So once you remove the inflammatory foods, give them the nutrients, the things that they need, the tools to slow down. When you are working with people, what do you see in terms of progress for them say in three, six months a year? Because we know it’s a process.
Absolutely. And in an intake, I emphasize continuously. And that as working with my clients, I continually bring up, remember this is a journey. I tell them all the time, and as I tell myself, a healthy lifestyle is a lifelong journey. It is not a destination that we will ever reach and quit. It’s not an option. So there will be ups and there will be downs, and we will quote fail, which I don’t believe failure is even a thing. It’s just a construct and we just get back up and we start again. So I have seen clients, depending upon their goals, within three to six months, some will lose weight. Some are just healthier and more active. I have had clients whose goal was to be able to eat and not get sick to their stomach and work on nervous system practices to the point where they are slowed down enough that they can eat a meal and not get sick.
I have had clients who wanted to get pregnant, and so I’ve had two that I’ve worked with and they were told, you can’t get pregnant. Or Here you have these underlying health issues. And to work with them and have them get pregnant within three months is fantastic. It’s definitely not an area that I specialize in, but it’s really a joy to say, Hey, let’s get these inflammatory foods out of your diet. Let’s get some supplements going. I can see some things happening in your body that may not have come up on tests. I’m doing the sign of the cross with my face. But I think you do the same thing as well where you look at the face and there are some things that show up on the face that let you know, Hey, here’s what’s happening in the body. And then I have worked with clients. I tell them the whole reason that I’m working with you is so that you don’t have to work with me anymore. If you want to see me for the rest of your life and pay me fantastic, but my goal is to get you to a sustainable, healthy lifestyle.
Absolutely.
It has to be sustainable.
It has to be sustainable otherwise, it doesn’t really matter.
Then yeah, what am I doing? I’m just selling you something that you’re going to go, once you do it, you see results, you’re going to not do it, and then you’re going to go find somebody else.
Just healthy and sustainable. And that shifts as well. So a lot of what I’m doing with my clients is, okay, let’s help you to reach your goals now. And we choose two to four goals to focus on for 30 days, and then those can shift. I’ll check in, how are you doing? What’s going on? Working with that shame aspect as well. I did a video on social media talking about shame that trauma is other people handing you their shame and guilt and telling you that you need to bear it. And that I personally felt like as I was healing, I was taking off these wet wool blankets of other people’s guilt and other people’s shame. And I’m like, why am I dragging this around? And there’s freedom in that. There’s so much freedom. And then getting to the place where your body is healing, your soul is healing.
You can listen to yourself enough that you don’t need me. Awesome.
It’s hard for a person to get to that point if they have an inflamed brain.
If they have an inflamed body. So as we wrap here up, I want our audience to really understand that what we eat is going to either give us life or it’s going to take life away from us. So we either make decisions to today to eat the foods that will maybe not be so enjoyable in the moment at first because it’s a change for you. But eating those healthy foods will make you feel better in the long run. It’ll make you feel better throughout the day where when you eat something that’s too sugary, too much, it’s fried, it’s processed, you feel good in the moment eating that food, but unfortunately, later on you’re going to feel bad for eating it. Not just bad psychologically feeling bad for your choices, but physically, your body’s going to feel lethargic. You’re not going to be able to focus and concentrate.
Your mood is highly affected by the foods you eat. So if you have an inflamed brain, you’re not going to be able to heal to see those areas of trauma that you need to get help. If you or someone has been dealing with struggles of substance drug abuse, then they got to get the nutrition part in there. Obviously, getting them off the substance is really important, but addressing what they’re eating is the next step in recovery. There’s so much that we can really dissect into this conversation and we are going to do a second part where we’re going to talk about more of the mental health neurotransmitters and food and how that helps us overall. But I hope you guys have enjoyed this conversation with Christina. And stay tuned for next week’s episode as we discuss the importance of nutrition exercise in seasonal depression disorder. Until then, be blessed. Thank you for listening to Physician Heal Thyself, the podcast. If you like what you’ve heard, please like, share and subscribe, help this message, reach more people who may need to hear it. Leave your comments. I want to know what you think. If you’re interested in learning more about Raices, visit our website. Until next time, be blessed.