Now you might be thinking how can health become toxic, is that even possible?

 

Well, first I wanna say you can have too much of a good thing.

Anything "good" can become "bad" when you have too much of it.

 

For example:

You have beneficial bacteria that live in certain areas of your digestive tract though if you happen to have too much of these guys in your small intestine digestive and other health issues can occur.

 

Now there are multiple layers and I know I won't be able to cover EVERYTHING in just one podcast episode, though I will do my best to highlight some things to look out for, reflect on.

 

For the sake of this episode I've broken it down into 4 things to look out for and I'll share some things that have helped me find more flexibility and balance in the way I nourish my body and life.

 

1. Distorted eating - When food or the thought of food begins to take over your day to day life (basically everything works around food).

 

This is something I have fallen into multiple times, to the point it was suggested I had something called Orthorexia which is a type of eating disorder, though instead of focusing on calorie restriction it’s more to do with an excessive preoccupation with eating healthy food.

 

And this type of distorted eating often starts with an innocent intention of becoming more healthy for whatever reason (for me it started out wanting to improve my immune system cause I was always sick).

 

Though when this pursuit leads to unhealthy consequences, such as social isolation, anxiety around food, loss of ability to eat intuitively, reduced interest in the full range of other healthy human activities, and, in extreme cases, malnutrition due to cutting out entire food groups (veganism for example). This is when it can start to become a form of distorted eating.

 

This it something that I have experienced throughout my health journey due to my often obsessive all or nothing mindset, it also didn’t help that I was studying nutrition and learning about health and the impact of food.

 

I’ve been through phases of following a clean eating, vegan, low fat, paleo etc type diets over the years, and often I would take them to the extreme.

 

I would get anxious about eating out, I would even bring my own food or eat in my car sometimes before meeting my friends out for dinner. I would log all my food before I ate it to make sure I didn’t go over my set macros of carbs and fat. And I lost the ability to actually enjoy food and relax with friends and family for a really long time.

 

2. Food fear - Anxiety around eating "bad foods" and feeling guilt or some sort of fear after eating it.

 

Some typical examples are:

 

I have experienced all of these things.

 

Thankfully towards the end of my naturopath and nutrition study I starting diving into personal development and doing work to heal my relationship with my body and food.

 

And one time I was heading out to dinner with one of my sweet friends that I was studying with and we were talking about how the fear of "unhealthy" food could be more harmful than the food itself, and she dropped the term irritable brain syndrome. Which I thought was freaking brilliant.

 

And to give you an example of IBS in action.

 

Let’s just say for example if you’re choosing not to eat wheat because you’re trying to rebuild your digestive health and get invited out to share a pizza with friends but you're shitting yourself as to what eating that pizza is potentially doing to your health or your gut.

 

And let’s say you went out and ate the pizza with this fear running through your mind.

 

This fear can put your body in fight or flight stress mode. Which turns down your digestive function which can definitely affect how your body responds to the food and its ability to break it down effectively.

 

Which can give you IBS type symptoms like bloating, gas, loose stools etc

 

So was it the food or the thoughts and anxiety around the food that made your body respond that way???  It could be either.

 

 

Your mind is SO powerful, so much so that it can actually make your body physically respond to the thoughts you're entertaining.

 

There have even been studies done where cancer patients who were given a placebo, still lost their hair... from THOUGHT ALONE.

 

So how trials often work is that they have 2 groups enrolled into the study but each group wouldn't have known if they were getting the active drug or a placebo (inactive drug).

 

In this case, there were participants in the placebo group who believed they were truly getting chemotherapy treatment.

Knowing the side effects of chemo and believing they were getting chemo made these people lose their hair.

 

Pure belief and thought.

 

I can't tell you HOW valuable this is to know. Because knowing this you can start to understand how powerful your mind is.

And just like it can create undesirable outcomes from thought alone you can equally create amazing outomes through thought alone.

 

 

This is why these days my approach to nourishing my body is VERY different.

 

I don’t have any hard no’s around what I eat in general.

Now by all means a plant-based, paleo or keto eating plan can be used medicinally for a period of time... though I no longer believe in any long term diet as your bodies needs change, plus the nourishment that comes from social connection and pleasure it’s also highly important from a holistic health standpoint.

 

This is why I believe so much in nourishing yourself BEYOND food because there are SO many other factors that influence health.

 

Creating stress and anxiety around food isn't helpful. Of course, some structure is helpful and there are food changes that could definitely be beneficial to enhance the healing process and take some stress off your system.

 

Though there is a fine line between doing your best to nourish yourself and driving yourself into a state of stress because you're trying to be perfect in your approach, which can be counterproductive.

 

and this leads me to number 3...

 

3. Health perfectionism - Doing everything you possibly can to maintain or avoid ill health, with little or no flexibility.

 

Trying to be a purest, is not helpful.

 

Perfect doesn't exist, life is ever moving and changing.

 

What's more important than pursuing the illusion of perfection is embodying intuition, flexibility and adaptability.

 

Getting to know how it communicates with you and listening to your bodies needs and feedback.

Staying flexible with yourself and your approach.

Adapting to life changes and challenges.

 

That is what's going to support and nourish you long term instead of trying to follow the rules that have been set by someones else and trying to be the perfect student so to speak.

 

Also, the reality is you could follow any diet "perfectly" yet still not get results and be miserable because your so hyperfocused on your health which can become consuming as you lose sight as to what you're actually doing it all for?

 

Which move me to number 4.

 

4. Health hoarding - which I see as an overfocus on health alone and not paying attention to other aspects of your whole life.

 

There is more to life than physical health.

 

Health is just one pillar.

There's also

 

Im still probably missing somethings off the top of my head, but hopefully this give you an idea.

 

My real point is that these are ALL thing the create a healthy THRIVING life.

If all you do is focus on HEALTH and neglect your social life, hobbies, family, work and higher purpose your likely going to feel misrable.

 

So I wanna ask you how can you nourish the other areas of your life more fully?

 

You could even rate how fulfilled or how much attention each area of your life is getting and start reflecting on how you can move forward in giving other areas more attention.

 

Something else I invite you to ask yourself...

 

What do you wanna get better for?

and what will you be able to do once you reach your health goals?

 

The reason I share this is that I can't encourage you enough to embody how you want to feel before it's even happened and to do the things that you wanna do instead of waiting to feel better, look better, have more confidence etc.

 

There is no time like NOW, and the more you step into that future version of yourself, the faster it will magnetise to you and become a part of who you are.

 

and just to recap, the 4 things to look out for are:

If you're wanting support and guidance in how to approach health in a more balanced, intuitive and holistic way.

And when I say balanced... [counter balance]

 

I offer 1-1 coaching packages, where I can support you in building awareness around your relationship with food, releasing limiting beliefs and thoughts around your health to make space for progress... cause if you have a belief like I'll never get better or nothing works for me for example... it's gonna be hard to move forward. so this is where I can guide you through a process to release those limiting beliefs.

Another thing could be rounding out your full human experience and strengthening other pillars in your life so you feel more fulfilled.

 

The beauty of 1-1 coaching is that I tailor all sessions to you specifically, so whatever it is you got going on I'll meet you where you're at.

I'm a naturopath ad nutritionist and also incorporate life and mindset coaching into my sessions.

So most things health and mindset related I got you covered.

 

If you're still not sure if 1-1 coaching is for you ... The best thing you can do is fill out an application form so I can get an idea of your goals and what's going on with you specifically, and if I think you're a good fit we can make it happen.