College Ready CEO interviews Carrie Wojo Certified Nutritionist

Here we go. Well, thank you so much for joining me, Carrie. I am so excited to share you with my families. For those of you who have joined us, um, and those of you who are listening to the recording after, I wanted to introduce Carrie Wojo. She's a clinical nutritionist, and the reason I brought her on today is because many of our students are dealing with emotions and they are dealing with how to stay healthy during a pandemic and a post-pandemic. So, I am super excited to share you with my families. Can you please share a little bit of your story of how you got to be a clinical nutritionist?

Absolutely. And thank you for sharing me. I appreciate that. Just like you, Shellee Howard, I love to help people. And the reason that my passion, my why is I used to be really, really, really unhealthy. When I was in 8th grade, I used to fall asleep after lunch every single day and had no idea. I just thought I was tired and I was a kid. Come to find out I had blood sugar issues that manifested about 10 years later. I used to have what doctors thought was fibromyalgia. I had pain in my shoulders and my hips and my knees and my muscles and my back would spasm all the time. And I was horribly constipated and I had horrible fatigue. I was just tired all the time. When I was a teenager and young adult, my My menstrual cycle was horribly heavy where I couldn't leave the house for a day or two. And I was just a mess. I just felt horrible. I was exhausted. I wasn't sleeping well. I didn't handle stress well. I was anxious a lot of the time where it affected my sleep and my mood. I just felt this inner turmoil and this anxiety all the time. And you don't talk to your parents about those things, right? As a teenager, you just don't. You think, well, this is just how I am and there's nothing that I can do about it. And so you just kind of deal with it. Not having any idea that what you're eating and, you know, lifestyle habits have anything to do with that. And so when I was about 26, I was going to a chiropractor for my back pain and met a clinical nutritionist, and she was like, oh, I need to show you this school. And so I went to school for 3 years, and I learned that my liver wasn't happy and my thyroid was out of balance and my blood sugar was horribly out of balance and my adrenals were tired just from stress. And so, you know, it took me about a year to heal myself. I was my own guinea pig, but it took me about a year, but I am so much healthier than I have ever been and I lost 30 lbs. and I handle stress so much better. Now I have the tools to help keep me in balance. I always tell people, like, nobody is perfect. Nobody's life is perfect, but it is about having the tools specific to you to keep you in balance. I've been in business almost 9 years now, and I work with my clients to identify their deficiencies and their dysfunctions and maybe some food sensitivities so that they can figure out what they should be eating, what they shouldn't be eating for them.

Wow. I mean, that your why is so important. Uh, I have a lot of students who are anxious and overwhelmed and tired all the time, and when we have them do a journal of their time, that reveals a lot. And then when I have them do a journal of what they're eating, it is massive that they are not caring for themselves. So during this pandemic or post-pandemic, a lot of students have complained about the COVID— I won't say how many pounds— and they're frustrated. And I worry, as I'm sure their parents do, about anorexia or bulimia or the other, you know, eating for stress. Is there anything that you can offer or do to support families in that area?

Yeah, so what I'm finding is with, with adults and kids, but it— a lot of the time people think that kids are invincible. Kids think they're invincible, and adults think that their kids are invincible. They're like, well, I shouldn't eat this, but let me give it to my kids. And so, yes, so What people don't realize is it's not just calories in and calories out. As a teenager, I was a calorie counter and it was stressful and it was tedious and it just doesn't focus on what's important. So, um, yeah. So what I'm finding is a lot of people are becoming insulin resistant because of the amount of sugar that they've eaten over the last year. Um, they're eating too many carbs, they're eating just too much food in general. And so they get constipated or they end up with diarrhea or really loose, too many times a day bowel movements. Um, they're bloated, they're gassy, they have burning in their stomach. Um, they just don't feel good when they eat certain foods and a lot of fatigue. I mean, at first my son, he's 17, he was really excited about the pandemic because he didn't understand, but he was like, I don't have to go to school. Amazing. And he didn't really understand the ramifications of it. But as the year went on, he's like, I miss my friends. I want to get back in school. I'm, I'm, I'm, he's kind of an extrovert and he likes that interaction. And so what I always tell people, kids or adults, is when the body's undergoing stress, you should treat your body like you have the flu, meaning lots of self-care, right? When we have a lot of stress, especially those overachieving teenagers that want to go to the best college and want to have the best grades and don't want to let their parents down, they have so much stress and they don't realize that they are using all of their body's reserves of minerals, vitamins, enzymes to handle this stress. They're making cortisol and adrenaline and they keep making it and they keep making it and their body's like, okay, enough already. I don't have any more. I don't have any more to give. And so they end up with depleted adrenals and cravings, that comfort eating or the stress eating that you were talking about. A lot of the time people go, well, I just need to have willpower. I need to just not eat those things. And they don't realize is if you're magnesium deficient, you're going to crave chocolate. Magnesium is in chocolate if it's good chocolate, but that's why we crave chocolate. So whatever it is, if you crave salty crunchy stuff, it's usually because your adrenals are just depleted and, and good pink Himalayan salt or Celtic salt have so many minerals, 84 to be exact, that feed the adrenals and give them and the nervous system what they need to function. So So many times when kids are moody, they're anxious, they're depressed, they're tired, it's because they're just deficient. You know, if you think about what kids eat from the time they're this big, you know, you have kids, graham crackers, and we feed them Fruit Roll-Ups, and we feed them fruit snacks, and we feed them Cheez-Its, and there's just all these things that are very convenient and very yummy that kids love, and we just feed them that stuff for years and years and years in their lunchbox for school or as a snack at home. And not only are they eating things that have food coloring and tons of crap salt and, you know, high fructose corn syrup and soybean oil and all of these things, they're also missing out on all the vitamins and minerals that are in real food. And so they become deficient. And then all the soybean oil and high fructose corn syrup and all of that make them make their bodies dysfunctional. So now they're deficient and dysfunctional, and it just leads to a very unhealthy adult. They may have some issues as teenagers, but it's only going to get worse if they don't find out what their issues are. And everybody's different. And so when I work with kids and with my own kids, I'll say, you don't have to eat what I eat, but you have to eat a veggie every day. You have to. There's no substitute for veggies. So Here's 5, pick one.

Right?

So it's about kind of meeting them where they're at and baby steps and all of that. But, you know, my 17-year-old, he used to go to his dad's house every single weekend, not as much now, but he would come home, you know, he's at my house 5 days a week. He'd come home from his dad's and go, give me veggies, please. Because he wouldn't eat any veggies at his dad's house. He would eat bowls of pasta and sugary cereal in the morning and hot chocolate with it. And he would come home just not feeling good and he would crave the veggies. And so, It took a while to get him to that point. I would go, please eat a veggie while you're at your dad's house. And he would come home and he wouldn't have, but he finally got to the point where he was like, oh, my body's craving it. I need it. So it's not going to happen overnight, right? These changes. But the more we can educate kids, like, I wish that I had had this information when I was a teenager. I wish that they taught this in elementary school because I feel like it's so important to create those foundational things, that mindset of, "You are a kid, but that doesn't mean you can eat whatever you want. Like, it is going to catch up with you and not for me. I do love you and I want you to feel good, but don't you want to feel good? Don't you want to feel your best?" Like, I remember when I was 30 lbs. heavier, I just felt like, "This is not my body. Like, I don't feel good in my clothes." You know, it is not all about weight. It's really not. A lot of people think, oh, I got heavier, therefore I'm not healthy. It's, it's the opposite. You got unhealthier by eating the things that you ate or drank and the weight. Mm-hmm. Right. So my focus is always, let's find your balance. Let's get the anxiety gone so that you're not fighting against yourself. Because when kids are depressed, anxious, stressed out, eating healthy is not going to be top of the list. Top of the priority list, right?

What about students, um, that have like ADD or ADHD? Is food part of all of that?

Absolutely. So dopamine and serotonin are two neurotransmitters that are made in the liver, and those two have a lot to do with motivation and focus. And the other thing is, is if kids eat a lot of sugar mine used to a long time ago, they're just, you know, they probably don't feel great or balanced and they get brain fog, right? When you have brain fog, you're easily distracted. You can't focus. You're just like, oh, I just want to take a nap or I want to go do something fun that'll wake me up. And it's really, really hard to focus. So my son, when he was in the first, second, and third grade, the teacher every year was like, He has ADD. We need to get him on medication. And I said, no way. I'm sorry. I'm not doing it. And when I became a nutritionist, I was like, okay, this summer we're going to take him off gluten and sugar. And I gave him two supplements that were food-based, chromium for blood sugar, red wine extract, different things that are really good for the brain. And I kid you not, I didn't even ask. He came day on the— came home. On the day of, first day of 4th grade and was like, "Mom, I had a way easier time paying attention today." And I was like, "Amazing, awesome." It doesn't, you know, it just takes a little time. And that's what kids and adults have trouble with. We're impatient. We want results now. And so that's why I tell people like, the sooner you can get started on healthier eating and figuring out what your specific needs are, the faster you'll feel better and you won't have to be patient for a year like I did.

Yeah.

Right. When I think back to what I ate as a kid, I'm horrified that, I mean, my dad provided all of it, went to Sam's Club and bought bulk everything, cheese popcorn and Laffy Taffy and Now and Laters and soda and caramel popcorn and cheese popcorn.

I'm getting hungry.

Insane. And so, you know, that's what kids like to eat. And that food is marketed to those kids. Right.

So if a family resonates with what you're talking about, how can they reach you? What would be a good way to contact you to ask some questions?

What I typically recommend is go to my website and read my bio, read my story. I go into it in detail and and my contact info is on there. I have my email address, my phone number. Um, reach out. I do free consultations, you know, just chat for 15 minutes and you tell me what's going on with you. And I tell you how my program works. Let me just see if it's a good fit. I want people to want to be here. I want them to be ready to make some changes, but it's baby steps. It's let's get you feeling better so that you feel motivated to continue on with more changes. Right? If we can get you more energy pretty quick, then you're going to be able to make the effort to food prep or to go buy new food and experiment with new food and all of that.

And what, what is your website address?

Oh, sorry. It's pathtohealthoc.com.

Excellent. pathtohealthoc.com.

Path to health.

Path to Health. Got it. Well, thank you so much for taking the time, and hopefully this will resonate and motivate a student or a family if they need it. And you are just a wealth of information, so thank you for being part of, um, this interview today.

Absolutely. Thanks for having me, Shellee Howard.