Tried Everything? THIS Is Why You’re Still Stuck, Inflamed & Hormones Out of Balance

Most women jump from diet to diet and it feels like nothing is working. They then blame themselves for not having enough willpower or discipline in order to ride it out, and then they end up feeling stuck, inflamed, exhausted, and the cycle continues to repeat, leading to immense amounts of frustration. What they don't realize is that statistically speaking, this is the experience for most women who are following various diets. It may not actually be you that's the problem. It's the diets that continue to set you up for cycles of failure. Today I'm going to review why most diets fail and it feels like nothing is working for you, and 5 nutrition principles that I incorporate into our nutrition approach that my team of dietitians does as well that changes our outcomes. This is coming from 11 years of experience as a registered dietitian with a board certification in integrative and functional nutrition. I trained at the Cleveland clinic, taught in academia for more than 7 years, and have reviewed thousands of lab tests and supported tens of thousands of women in my nutrition programs. Number 1, it is impossible to know who to trust. Everyone on the internet is suddenly a nutrition expert, and while this has always been the case, it feels like it's worse than ever. You have influencers giving their nutrition recommendations or what worked for them, personal trainers chiropractors, doctors, naturopaths, but none of these people are true experts. A friend of mine was recently showing me her labs that she had reviewed with a chiropractor that came down to nutrition recommendations, and the chiropractor had run a food sensitivity test and then recommended removing a number of foods from her diet. And then also when her omega-6 levels were elevated, told her that it was probably because of the olive oil and a few other foods that she was eating in her diet that would absolutely not have driven that number to be elevated. So it's extremely important for you to do your research on who you're trusting on the internet and who you're working with when it comes to a practitioner. While I'd love to say the number one nutrition expert that I would recommend for nutrition is a dietitian, the other confusing thing is that within the field of dietitians, there's a camp of dietitians who recommend eating all foods in moderation. And their approach in working with clients or patients is to decrease food judgment and have an all foods fit mentality, meaning helping guide you to eating candy without feeling judgment and eating added sugar when you want to have added sugar without feeling judgment. And I also do not believe that this approach works. So here's what I would recommend when looking for a true nutrition expert, whether you're following them on the internet or you're working with them in real life. I recommend one, trying to find a registered dietitian or a certified nutrition specialist, a CNS, ideally trained in functional medicine, which is an additional board certification. There are a number of quote unquote nutritionists on the internet who do not have formal nutrition training, which does make it harder for them to truly know how to work with a person in order to improve those outcomes. Number two, someone who has clinical expertise. So in addition to having education, also having clinical expertise is very important, meaning someone that has worked with thousands or at least hundreds of people so that they understand how to navigate when things don't work according to how they should. Meaning that when you take a research study, the research study says increase your fiber to 30 grams of fiber per day, and these are the outcomes that we showed in this population. So then a clinician would say, oh, because the research says 30 grams of fiber is important, that's what we're going to recommend, without having the context of, of knowing that for this person who has small intestinal bacterial overgrowth or SIBO, that that might actually be the worst recommendation that you can make in the short term, because there's a number of things that have to take place first in order for you to improve the tolerance to fiber without increasing more GI symptoms. Number 2, stop using the scale as the only metric of your health. Most diets out there advertise weight loss because this is what sells. If they can market to you losing 20 pounds or 50 pounds, then they know is going to be effective in converting you to their programs. And then most programs put you on a large caloric deficit, and then you try to follow it for as long as physically possible. Here's what happens when you're in large caloric deficits for a long period of time. Your metabolic rate decreases. Your body becomes less efficient at burning calories. Your actual metabolism slows down. So then when you get to the point that you no longer can continue to restrict long-term because your hunger hormones are pushing against you, telling you that you are starving and that you need to eat more, that causes you to gain weight, and it actually throws off your metabolism. We know that women who have a history of yo-yo dieting have a slower metabolism compared to women who do not. So your approach needs to be about more than just the weight. The sustainability that we find in clients that we work with who come through our programs is really in focusing on all of the other aspects. You have a lot of complex systems working together. You have your genes, you have your microbes, you have your immune cells, you have your neurotransmitters, your hormones. There are so many variables, and your nutrition plan should be one that helps to improve all of your markers. So I want to tell you a story. In one of my programs, our membership, I was reviewing someone's labs in our membership and sharing what I would recommend if I was working with them one-on-one. And she had shared that she followed a very restrictive diet for a significant period of time. She effectively lost 30 pounds. But when I was looking at her labs, over every single year, her cholesterol was increasing. Her LDL cholesterol was increasing. Her small LDL particle numbers were extremely high, and she was experiencing more GI issues and bloating. Now, she lost 30 pounds, but her cholesterol was continuing to worsen. Her bloating and GI symptoms were continuing to worsen. She had a lot of constipation. And so this is an example of needing to have a nutrition plan that not only helps you lose weight, but it actually factors in all of your holistic needs, meaning improving your cardiovascular health, improving your hormone health, improving your gut microbiome so that you have more regular bowel movements. Improving the inflammation so that if you have hives or rosacea or acne or other external signs of inflammation on the skin or joint pain or period pain or sleep issues, all of these things should be moving in the right direction when you're on a nutrition plan that is factoring in all of your needs. So we need to stop using the scale as the only metric of your health and start diving deeper into this complex ecosystem that you are and how we can use nutrition, use food as your medicine, use food as information to fuel your cells in order to improve all aspects of your health instead of only using the number on the scale. Number 3, know that there is a difference between nutrient consumption and nutrient absorption. So when it comes to nutrition plans, A lot of people assume that because they're eating healthy, that means that they're absorbing the nutrients that they're eating. You could be shopping at Whole Foods and eating, you know, more whole foods and really prioritizing your, your nutrition, trying to incorporate more nutrients into your diet, and that doesn't necessarily mean that you're absorbing those nutrients that you're consuming if you have an imbalanced gut microbiome. In my membership program, we have a number of women who are following our anti-inflammatory meal plans every single week and have tremendous success with moving the needle on so many different aspects of their health, many of which that I'm talking about today that are focused not just on the scale but on supporting their blood sugar balance and their inflammation so that we can help with improving their energy and their focus and their cardiovascular health and so many other parameters of health. But what we find when some of those members that, let's say they've been with us for a year or 6 months and they've really been focused on nailing the meal prep consistency and leaving their, their diet in the past so that they're focused on this as a true lifestyle where they're making a number of improvements, then they are still having certain symptoms that can't fully be resolved on a more generic plan since we could never guarantee that a nutrition plan works for everyone. And so what we'll find is that when they come into a program like My Food Is Health that we offer, where we're testing their nutrient deficiencies, they have high numbers of nutrient deficiencies in some cases. And it doesn't mean that the nutrition plan that they're consuming does not have a vast array of vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients, but it means that they often have gut imbalances or underlying stress that's impairing their ability to actually absorb those nutrients. So when they run nutrient deficiency testing, they're surprised often in seeing these, these imbalances and saying, wow, I can't believe with how much work I've put into my diet and my nutrition that this hasn't— that I have any nutrient deficiencies. And so there's a difference between nutrient consumption and nutrient absorption. What we find is that when people have higher levels of stress, it can actually impair the absorption of certain nutrients like magnesium or vitamin C, where your body runs through these nutrients at a more accelerated rate. We also know that when there are imbalances that are happening in the gut microbiome, whether that is the bacteria imbalances or issues with increased intestinal permeability, meaning a leaky gut, that, that increases the need for certain nutrients and it decreases your overall absorption of the nutrients that you're consuming. In your diet. So a few things that can help to start is slowing down with your meals, trying to sit, be present for your meals, chew your food more thoroughly. This helps with putting yourself into a parasympathetic state where you're in more of a rest and digest state, allowing you to actually absorb those nutrients, have an easier time being in a state of absorbing those nutrients. And if you're still having symptoms, it may mean that you need to test and not guess. Meaning test instead of guessing all of these additional supplements that you actually need. Because taking a million different supplements that are marketed to you on the internet is not going to move the needle on your health. What will move the needle on your health is actually understanding what's happening underneath the hood and testing nutrient deficiencies. We know that the majority of people that we work with have at least one nutrient deficiency, and that more than 67% of Americans have nutrient deficiencies. And this could be a common driver of underlying inflammation, of fatigue, of so many metabolic imbalances. And being able to test and see what your true needs are so that then you can take a very calculated and strategic approach instead of a generic approach that you're just like throwing the kitchen sink at and, and hoping that it works— this is the approach that I would recommend. Number 4: stop following the same elimination diets. That is recommended for everyone without factoring in your own biochemical individuality. So underlying everything that I practice is the concept of biochemical individuality, which is based on a book with the title by Roger Williams, who's a PhD researcher, first published in 1956, where he talked about the concept of biochemical individuality and the concept that we learn at a very young age as children, that everyone is different and that we need to be focused on nutrition in that same lens, that everyone is different and has their own unique needs. And this is coming from a place where I have a membership and our, our Blood Sugar Reset, our membership, The Being Collective, and our nutrition program, The Blood Sugar Reset, where we have helped almost 30,000 women in improving their health using a fairly generic nutrition plan. That's very science-backed and has very important nutrition parameters along the lines of eating 30 grams of fiber per day, getting enough protein, getting enough variety of phytonutrients, more than 30 plants per week. All these things that really help with getting women results in a fairly short amount of time. But even with that, and the fact that that is a, a large thing that we do in my business, I have to be able to also convey that there is no one nutrition plan that works for everyone, that Everyone is unique. And so in that realm, what happens often is that people walk into functional medicine doctor's offices or their doctor's office, and then everyone is put on the same elimination diet and thinking that that is going to work. Now, I'm a big proponent of even just starting gluten-free and dairy-free, which is something that we do, do in the first 4 weeks of my membership to be able to then work through the reintroduction process. But there are so many deeper needs that we see women experience that require different styles of elimination diets, whether that's a low histamine approach or a low FODMAP approach or a thyroid-focused approach or deeper metabolic support. And all of these require being able to look at you as a person and say, this is what you need off of your history, your labs, etc. What's worked for you, what hasn't worked for you, and let's do that. And then also pair that with the right supplements based on your lab testing in order to serve as a catalyst for improving your health. We have a number of people who come through my programs even after doing an elimination diet with their functional medicine doctor or the Whole30 or some kind of a very cookie-cutter nutritional elimination protocol. And what we find is that one, tailoring it to your individual needs when it comes to that elimination approach is key. And two, doing it alongside supplements is what serves as that catalyst for creating those results. So for people who have followed maybe the Whole30 or some kind of nutrition approach in the past, and you have some success but not enough success that it actually improves your symptoms drastically, it's oftentimes because you're not doing the testing alongside with that supplement introduction in order for you to pair all of the pieces together at the same time in order for that to truly serve as the catalyst for healing. Healing, for your body to have the inputs that it needs to, to do the work to get you the fastest results possible. And when I say fastest results possible, I'm not trying to sell you a quick fix approach, but it means not wasting years and years of your life trying to follow generic plans that can only get you so far. And again, I have the Being Collective membership where we have— I'm so proud of the results that we get for women every single day. But it is interesting when Some of them identify that they have ongoing issues in their symptoms and were able to then do the testing, pair it with the supplements, and serve as a catalyst so that then they can go back to the Being Collective meal plans as a long-term, as a long-term maintenance portion of their nutrition plan after doing that more intensive work in the short term in the 10 weeks of doing My Food Is Health. And then number 5, most nutrition plans do not focus on your mindset. Your mindset is one of the key reasons that women are not able to be successful long-term. And when it comes to mindset, there's a lot of things that need to take place. One, improving your relationship with food and knowing that this is not about judging food as being good or bad or right or wrong or a cheat meal or other words that are used to describe those experiences. And instead focusing on what really works best for you and having the mindset that you don't have to be perfect in order to have results. This is all about consistency over perfection. And in a lot of women that we work with, they have a history of long-term dieting, they have a history of viewing food as good or bad, they have a history of short-term fad diets and things not working out in the long run and continuously feeling stuck, and it's because following a list of foods that are right or wrong or good or bad will never help you focus on the mindset that you need to take your health to the next level. And what I will say in working with thousands and thousands of women, including Fortune 500 CEOs and extremely successful podcasters, bestselling authors, senators, et cetera, celebrities, is that mindset at the end of the day is one of the biggest levers to change your long-term habits. That you cannot have the mindset that you have today and expect to have the results. It requires going deeper into your mindset, proving to yourself that you are capable of making this a lifestyle, not sabotaging yourself when you're stressed and stress eating, that then you throw in the towel and it leads to this cycle of Oh well, I had the donut, so what the hell, I might as well have the Oreos and the other donuts and the bagels and all these other foods because I've quote unquote blown it. It requires you to be able to have a holistic, healthy relationship with food where you're thinking about and enjoying the consumption of whole nutrient-dense foods where you experience a level of joy and satisfaction and pleasure from from honoring your body's needs and nourishing yourselves in a way that isn't so specifically derived from calorie counting or macro counting or a numbers-focused approach. So on the opposite end, we focus a lot on mindset, helping women understand the value of using food as medicine, showing to them that it is possible for them to do it, working through areas that they consistently self-sabotage, identifying underlying barriers that are keeping them stuck so that we can create the mindset that's necessary to make this a true lifestyle change and create that level of success. And a key part of that is learning how to listen to your body. So much of what people are taught in nutrition is what you should do, what you should eat, what you should— how you should live your life. And this like check the box, this checklist of things that you need to do. And so much of it actually comes down to listening to your body requiring you to stop solely relying on advice from experts, opinions, and outside sources, friends, other people who want to give you their opinion, and begin to know your body, know your patterns, listen to your symptoms in a nonjudgmental way, and live from a place of honoring your own unique needs. So let me recap that really quickly. One, it is impossible to know who to trust. Which is one of the biggest issues for nutrition. To stop using the scale as the only metric of your health and focusing on your biomarkers. 3, knowing that there is a difference between nutrition consumption and nutrient absorption. 4, stop following the same elimination diets that are for everyone and think about pairing supplements that are for you based on testing that you've conducted with individualized nutrition needs. And 5, focusing on your mindset. If this is an approach that you're interested in taking, we would love to support you in My Food Is Health, which is a 10-week program that we have been running for the last 6 years, supporting more than 1,000 women in all of the things that I talked about today. If you're interested in going deeper with us, then you can click the link in the show notes and you can book a discovery call with our lead dietitian, Michelle Sermans. To better understand if this is the right fit for you. Now, if My Food Is Health is not for you, I hope that today's episode was helpful in being able to understand how you can navigate your own needs with your practitioner, your functional medicine doctor, or whoever it is that you're working with so that you're able to get results and stop feeling stuck. I also want to note that the majority of you that are watching this on YouTube are not subscribed to our channel, so please click the subscribe button for the Being Brigid Show. We would love to be able to continue to dive deeper into the nutrition episodes that we have coming on blood sugar and inflammation and truly supporting women's health using food as medicine. Thank you so much for tuning in, and I'll see you next time.