Discernment. This is the thing we all struggle with these days- what is for me and what is not for me? To know what a yes and a no feel like in our unique bodies. We’ve been disconnected from the felt sense of our lives and search for this knowing externally. It’s so layered and nuanced and complex. And so much bigger than anything that can be written in a post or comment on substack.
Thank you for sharing your journey with all of us. May we all know soul-deep and bones-deep nourishment in our lives, for our children and our children’s children.
4 lows solidarity! I can relate to so much of your experience and process of seeking the answers from external sources. I'm a recovering vegetarian/vegan, and had wildly disordered eating for many years, also got indoctrinated by some purity culture messaging around 'not needing supplements' for many years. I just sent in my third repeat HTMA and very curious what it's showing after a year of adjusting supplements and nourishing myself. I'm still nursing and I pump while I'm at work and my milk is so much whiter and creamier than it was at this point after my first son's birth- I think it's the calcium I so desperately needed and the extra fat I am committed to getting- especially in the afternoons.
I've been thinking so much about how the idea of "a good metabolism" has been stolen and rebranded to mean thinness, and this has had such devastating consequences particularly for women. One thing that surprised me about the remineralization process is that it's been a healing experience for me on a physical/cellular level in terms of my relationship to food, thinness, control and safety in my body- it feels like I'm actually finding out what safety in my body can mean for the first time.
Rachel, this comment is justifying this entire Substack endeavor for me! I drink in these stories of women healing and finding true nourishment like water. It feels so good to know how many of us there are unlearning and relearning and walking this spiral together.
The purity culture messaging around supplements being unnecessary or even bad is so real. For decades I believed that if I just "ate what my grandmothers ate" there would be no need to supplement my diet. But the food I eat is not what my ancestors ate, nutrient wise, and the world my nervous system has evolved in is not the world they inhabited. Supplements have been essential in my remineralizing process.
So beautiful to read about the change in quality of breastmilk! Of course it would show up there, of course your ancient mammalian body would send the nutrients into the nourishment of your child.
Yes, my mom's definition of a good metabolism was 100% about thinness, not about overall metabolic wellness and the ability to produce energy.
The feeling of safety is so fundamental to a woman being in a truly nourished state. I am beaming reading that you've landed there :-D
I am proud you have a plan. I just posted a comment under my other name Tricia. You will see if you read it that staying at home works well if you have a supportive environment, but not so much if you don't. I had seven children in 13 years and we were in poverty. ( I recovered when I ran away from home and went to work.;-) After most of the children were all grown.) - Jimmy
I relate to all of this so hard. Like you, I discovered one of my mum’s ‘health books’ (in my case, Beauty by Leslie Kenton) devoured it and became obsessed with optimising my body. I had a fascination with health and wellness that was unusual for my age: I remember being 15 and preparing salads with seeds for my school lunches. I felt a superiority to my classmates as they chowed down burgers and chips in the school canteen (whilst secretly salivating and wishing I could eat them too). I was always STARVING but I didn’t know it; I felt empty and light and a little high. This resulted in a brief stint of anorexia, which soon became bulimia, which I then had for almost 10 years. I never considered my bulimia from a nutritional point of view, as I thought I was healthy and that I ate well when not binging. I always figured it was purely psychological. Looking back, I can see that the urge to binge was a survival mechanism: my body’s alarm bell to eat something of substance. In a binge, I could eat a whole tub of peanut butter in one sitting. My body craved fats so much. I did a lot of therapy to recover, but nothing stuck until I started eating 3 solid meals a day plus snacks, and stopped restricting any foods.
Oh, and I was raised vegetarian and didn’t eat meat until my 30s. think of my nutritional stores and despair.
Miraculously, I conceived last year at the age of 32, without trying. Interestingly, I had just started eating meat 6 months prior and was eating loads of good quality dairy and getting plenty sunlight. I have your podcast to thank, as it helped me reconsider vegetarianism and let go of my familial conditioning ❤️
I type this whilst nursing my beautiful 8 week old daughter. I worry about what the legacy of malnutrition has done and will do to her. But it’s not too late to show her what a nourished woman looks like.
Thank you for all that you share, Amber. Your writing is so inspiring to me.
What a beautiful and hopeful story Lorena, thank you for sharing it!
I think of all the young women coming of age now on the internet and the deluge of health optimization information they are coming across. You and I were definitely outliers for reading those books at that age, but for them the same influence and framework is in the air they breathe.
"We’re gonna be okay. We’re also gonna be sick and tired sometimes and that’s okay too. And then we’re gonna die." This line really resonates Sadie.
I wish I could view a parallel life where I never took *any* health advice- even things I believe in and practice now like a high protein breakfast- and could see the outcome of that approach on my health. Would the lack of stress and fear over doing it "right" mean that simple toast with butter would nourish me in that life just as much as I believe my meaty eggy breakfast does now?
Very happy to see at least one person in the comments had a well nourished mother!
Thank you for sharing Amber. I am navigating hormonal changes ( same age as you) having a baby 2 days after I turned 38) moving a million times, nursing baby for 4.5 yrs, stress stress stress of my whole life and welll.... I feel you. Gently treading the mineral path with sleepy feet and going with the hormonal flow which is unnerving at times.... thank you for your information on thyroid as well!
I grew up with a single mom, who was a nurse and who would take me to jazzersize classes other her! Haha- we ate well lots of fruit veg and meats with lots of processed food as well. I'm happy she was too thrifty to buy massive amount of junk food and would make us snacks or get less gnarly options... she is and was so beautiful and also embodied a self loathing that I struggle to shake today. We owe it to all the woman in our lines to love ourselves... no matter what our brains tell us.💗💗💗 thank you for being you and sharing your tale... it ripples
I have had so many women share with me something along the lines of "my mother was so beautiful and also embodied a self loathing that I struggle to shake today". I am glad so many of us today are aware of the effect this self loathing can have on our children (esp daughters), which brings me to your line "We owe it to all the woman in our lines to love ourselves." Yes. Thank you.
Love this idea of healing forward. I so much relate to your journey to figure out how to nourish yourself. I'm more your mom's age, but food has been a tough thing to figure out--what to eat and why. I too have cycled through lots of different modes. At times I've felt as if I achieved optimum health, as in flowing rivers of energy and a bright and hopeful outlook, and then all that will fall apart. I recently found out that flour products leave me highly inflamed. That discovery was a sad day, because I've been determined to be an omnivore and eat a diverse, high-nutrient diet. I'm so glad you're committed to figuring this out and sharing your discoveries with us. Also, so glad you're doing a Substack. Your podcasts got me through the pandemic, not gonna lie. I felt as if I'd found my tribe when I found you. I remember you saying how much you want to write, and now you're doing it!
The more robust our metabolic health, the less inflamed we will be. I am inspired by the many people who have healed their food sensitivities. I am still deep in food reactivity myself but share your ideal of wanting to eat a diverse array. I believe it is possible to get there again.
For myself, I see that I used my high energy times to plow through my limits and achieve as much as possible. If I regain that same energy ever again I will be interested to learn how to recognize the need for rest and slowing down even when I feel good.
Thank you for the reflection on the podcast and my oft-stated desire to write! It feels really good.
I grew up food insecure between two households, both with different patterns of disordered eating. My father lived on two hard boiled eggs, a liter of Coca Cola, and a side-plate portion of whatever dinner we ate. This was partially due to frugality (making sure his kids had enough) and partially due to his eating disorder, that I only came to recognize as such after coming out the other side of my own rollercoaster of eating disorders in my thirties. His struggles to put food on the table manifested in food shaming us for eating too much. I'll never forget being yelled at for making an after-school snack of the only food I could find, a flour tortilla warmed in the microwave and spread with margarine. The snack was unhealthy, and also, those tortillas were for dinners!
My mother was like your mother, crash dieting her way through having it all as a single mother. We were also food insecure at her house, but she tried to keep nutritious options (or what was considered "healthy" in the 90s: rice milk, raw nuts, dried fruit, tigermilk bars) available. But my mother, the woman I thought was the most beautiful woman in the world, thought she was ugly and fat, and if she was ugly and fat, then my crooked teeth having, pot bellied, bubble butt had to be a walking grotesque anomaly. I started Slimfast when I was eleven, begging my mother to let me have it and winning the argument because it meant she only had to spend $2 a day for my breakfast and lunch.
Three decades after starting that first diet and I finally feel like I am standing on solid ground when it comes to knowing what my body needs, but doing it is still sometimes difficult. Junk food is still a comfort, though the pull is not nearly as strong as it was when I was binge eating, and fast food still has an emotional hold on me (Taco Bell was a major reward/treat when I was a kid), but I no longer beat myself up if I eat something bad, and I try to make better choices and move toward long term goals of nourishment at a slow and sustainable pace. Your podcast is a huge part of that process for me, and I don't think I'd be where I am now if a dear friend hadn't recommended it a little over two years ago. <3
I am so glad the podcast has supported you Chelsea. Thank you for sharing this story! Reading all the comments and replies- seeing just how many of us grew up in households with disordered eating- really drives home why my generation is struggling so mightily with food and metabolic wellness.
Ooof. I feel a lot of this in my bones. The part about constantly looking outside ourselves for the answers. I am fortunate however, that although I was also raised by a single working mama, I miraculously had a nourished childhood. I say miraculously because I’m 44 and the low fat trend of the 80s was a doozy (I didn’t escape margarine unfortunately).
If I look back matrilineally, I have many thanks to give to my grandmother who, even though she tragically fell for the “feed tour babies formula instead of breast milk” propaganda of the 40s and 50s, fed her 8 children homemade whole food from their garden and livestock. My mom grew up with a milk cow, chickens and a garden. My grandmother canned so prolifically I mourn that that way of living was lost in just two generations.
I was born on an herb farm and my folks hitchhiked to the Oregon coast with me as a baby. The mossy, wet forest where they built the yurt we lived in fed my biome in those early years. Along with the fact my mom gave me zero vaccines (I ask her about this and there is no ideology-just: “I don’t know. You seemed fine. I didn’t think you needed them”)
Bulgar wheat with veggies and cheese, organic hot dogs, so much chicken (tragically no organ meats like she grew up on). Eggs and yogurt. And way too many crackers and canned, frozen juice (remember those!?)
So even tho I had processed I was still nourished. And the land that I was running wild on nourished me deeply (all hail feral childhoods held in love).
As I grew, I was of course influenced by all the bullshit I read in magazines and have tried a million different diets (nothing radical, fasting does NOT work for me) and have only recently began to ask myself “wait, why do I need this supplement? DO I need it? Who told me I need it?”
My immune system is (knock on wood) profoundly robust and when i had my son he was hale and hearty (the fight against the overculture poison snacks and garbage food is real, especially since he chose public school this year 🥴)
This was really long. Apologies. I just felt moved to comment because appreciate you and the wisdom you share. Especially now you’re on this journey. Thank you for taking the time to share with us.
I felt compelled to share my story too. Even though it’s not in the same vein. The older I get, the more I realize how lucky I have been to have nourished and to have sustained energy in motherhood. I wish the same for every woman.
Also, super interested on Dave Asprey comment as my husband has listened to him for a while now
But once I heard him speak about optimizing his wife's fertility through microdosing caffeine and I thought OK, Does this guy hink he's mangod? it was off-putting,
Some of Dave's stuff might work for some men, but I don't think it works (long term) for any woman. The pro-metabolic article I linked to above has a great take-down of the whole idea of biohacking.
Wow. I resonate with every single thing you wrote. For the last several years I have been seeking that next piece of info that will "heal" and "fix" me. I thought I had found it with the pro-metabolic diet only to find that it made everything worse for me. And last year when I turned 40, something in me shifted. I was dealing with the sudden weight of losing my father and my whole world turned upside down. My sleep was affected, my hormones went out of control and over the last year, I have generally not felt like myself. I do believe that my whole body shifted upon turning 40. I cant explain it. I just feel it.
I researched food and diets and kept trying to figure out what exactly was going to be the perfect thing to completely nourish me. As an herbalist, I relied heavily on the plants, but that only goes so far. What I finally realized the last couple of months is that, while I need to focus on healing on a deep, cellular level, I also understand that what is defined as "nourishment" changes for me daily. Some days its a grass fed burger, other days its a smoothie and then there are times when its chips and queso. I no longer shame myself or the food that I eat because I think the toxic culture around what we "should" or "shouldn't" eat is actually causing more harm than the food itself.
I had also became hyper focused on regulating my nervous system (its become such a trendy thing these days) and what I realized as a mom to a 6 year old boy, is that our nervous systems cant also be regulated. Yes, we want to get out of constant fight or flight, but also, we have to live our life. And that means that things get hard and our nervous system will respond. Meaning, there are a lot of times we are dysregulated. We can only try our best to find ways to manage our stress but in the end, the hyper fixation of regulating our nervous systems (mostly stemmed from the constant borage of influencers pushing it on us) can lead us to making things worse than they were in the first place. I have been in wellness groups where I see people literally stressing out nonstop about every single thing they are putting in their body or how they are living their life. Many women these days are giving their power away over to strangers on the internet telling them what to eat, what supplements to take, how to regulate their stress, etc. We are becoming so disconnected from our own bodies. And thats a scary thing.
This has become more of a ramble. Sorry about that. But all of this to say, I think what you are sharing is a common theme for many women. Please continue to share. We are here for it.
Everything you wrote resonates Lindsey. Every word of it. I even avoided the phrase "regulating my nervous system" in this piece for the very reasons you speak of.
I had a similar experience with pro-metabolic when I was applying it as I had applied every other food ideology, but since deepening my understanding of Dr. Peat's work and shifting focus toward my own body's feedback I have found it very supportive- https://fundamentalnourishment.substack.com/p/pro-metabolic
It seems regulating one’s nervous system just replaced the term ‘good vibes only’ - I think a lot of people think it just means being calm and peaceful all the time. When really it means being able to move in and out of states as needed. Our nervous system has different states for survival.
Thanks for sharing your journey and story. What a mess we live in, with the hooks of purity or thinness or low fat or strict diets of any kind.
I grew up kind of different - my mom was very strict in our health food, as she was hypoglycemic and trying out all the health food options. Weird soybean casseroles, liver and onions, all home cooked, ancestral type eating. And so many supplements! And pressure to "work hard to be healthy". So when I was diagnosed with hashimotos and graves disease my journey was about undoing the pressure and the guilt and shame. I tried so many things to heal my thyroid, and ultimately I think that IFS (inner parts) therapy did it- giving expression to the multitude inside me. And now I HATE taking supplements, but am finding a love for herbal tinctures from chinese medicine.
I deeply appreciate these lines from you:
"No matter what I do for my children- how I feed them or what values I instill- while they’re still at home, the culture is an overwhelming force.
And the culture is deeply unwell."
I worry about how my 8 year old son will fare, being bombarded by all the depleted garbage food around us, and his attraction to it, and how to instill grounded values in him - without the pressure and shame I took on about health in my childhood.
I love reading how helpful IFS has been for you. I have dabbled, but this encourages me to dive deeper.
I'd like to write more about this fine line mothers walk between supporting our childrens' health and not stressing them out about food and health. It feels impossible at times.
Ps my website is InnerArtistry.space if you’re interested in trying an ifs session with me and want to see who I am and what I offer! Of course no pressure or strings attached!
Thank you for sharing, Amber. My story is very similar to yours — except that I seem to have started at even more of a deficit. My mother was terribly malnourished her whole life and my health started to go off the rails very early. I flailed around desperately for an answer, and cutting wheat helped me to stabilize for a bit. I thought I’d figured it out. Then I had a baby, not realizing how deeply depleted I still was, and the 2.5 years of breastfeeding nearly killed me. I became increasingly orthorexic, trying to find The Answer to my health problems. Stress has taken a toll in recent years as well. Finally seeing the full picture, understanding that light and community and movement are just as important as food, has helped a lot. I’m looking forward to getting my minerals back up once I’m back in the states and I can see where my levels are at.
I am 34 and I'm scared because I've hit this point a couple of years ago. 15 years of being health conscious and every year my health just gets worse. And how much money have I wasted on supplements; yet I still keep buying them!! Grr
thanks for sharing. this needs to be a revolution!! in so many of the points you touch on ~ that the constant-go mentality of our culture may "work for some" (I don't know that it really "works" just doesn't result in total depletion), but many others, due to our inherited genetics(!!!!!), will totally crash and burn without way more scheduled in rest than our culture seems to allow for. that diet + wellbeing lifestyle approaches would better benefit us all if they each started with a self-assesment: not only HTMA, bloodwork, family history, but also, a rekindling of our capacity to listen to our inner knowing!! it is KEY to knowing how to fuel ourselves - this ability to actually hear, and actually HEED, the messages coming from within.
Thank you for sharing such a vulnerable story and for how you're coming back to trust in your own answers, your own wisdom. I've been thinking and writing recently on how our constant search for that something in the wellness world isn't helping us in quite the way we think and there are so many overlaps with your experiences here. There's a different kind of nourishment in coming back to ourselves that we all need right now.
Thank you for your honesty Amber, and for sharing your searching. I grew up in rural New Zealand and we did eat well however through my fathers work we were exposed to agricultural chemicals. Both of my sisters and I didn’t eat in the most nourishing ways throughout childbearing years, and we also undertook too much physical work while pregnant and breastfeeding and now we all have thyroid problems. We are all committed to balancing our minerals and nourishing our bodies, and trying to learn to actually rest … and wish we knew all of this years ago!
Discernment. This is the thing we all struggle with these days- what is for me and what is not for me? To know what a yes and a no feel like in our unique bodies. We’ve been disconnected from the felt sense of our lives and search for this knowing externally. It’s so layered and nuanced and complex. And so much bigger than anything that can be written in a post or comment on substack.
Thank you for sharing your journey with all of us. May we all know soul-deep and bones-deep nourishment in our lives, for our children and our children’s children.
Nailed it.
4 lows solidarity! I can relate to so much of your experience and process of seeking the answers from external sources. I'm a recovering vegetarian/vegan, and had wildly disordered eating for many years, also got indoctrinated by some purity culture messaging around 'not needing supplements' for many years. I just sent in my third repeat HTMA and very curious what it's showing after a year of adjusting supplements and nourishing myself. I'm still nursing and I pump while I'm at work and my milk is so much whiter and creamier than it was at this point after my first son's birth- I think it's the calcium I so desperately needed and the extra fat I am committed to getting- especially in the afternoons.
I've been thinking so much about how the idea of "a good metabolism" has been stolen and rebranded to mean thinness, and this has had such devastating consequences particularly for women. One thing that surprised me about the remineralization process is that it's been a healing experience for me on a physical/cellular level in terms of my relationship to food, thinness, control and safety in my body- it feels like I'm actually finding out what safety in my body can mean for the first time.
Rachel, this comment is justifying this entire Substack endeavor for me! I drink in these stories of women healing and finding true nourishment like water. It feels so good to know how many of us there are unlearning and relearning and walking this spiral together.
The purity culture messaging around supplements being unnecessary or even bad is so real. For decades I believed that if I just "ate what my grandmothers ate" there would be no need to supplement my diet. But the food I eat is not what my ancestors ate, nutrient wise, and the world my nervous system has evolved in is not the world they inhabited. Supplements have been essential in my remineralizing process.
So beautiful to read about the change in quality of breastmilk! Of course it would show up there, of course your ancient mammalian body would send the nutrients into the nourishment of your child.
Yes, my mom's definition of a good metabolism was 100% about thinness, not about overall metabolic wellness and the ability to produce energy.
The feeling of safety is so fundamental to a woman being in a truly nourished state. I am beaming reading that you've landed there :-D
Quit work.
certainly part of the long term plan haha.
I am proud you have a plan. I just posted a comment under my other name Tricia. You will see if you read it that staying at home works well if you have a supportive environment, but not so much if you don't. I had seven children in 13 years and we were in poverty. ( I recovered when I ran away from home and went to work.;-) After most of the children were all grown.) - Jimmy
I relate to all of this so hard. Like you, I discovered one of my mum’s ‘health books’ (in my case, Beauty by Leslie Kenton) devoured it and became obsessed with optimising my body. I had a fascination with health and wellness that was unusual for my age: I remember being 15 and preparing salads with seeds for my school lunches. I felt a superiority to my classmates as they chowed down burgers and chips in the school canteen (whilst secretly salivating and wishing I could eat them too). I was always STARVING but I didn’t know it; I felt empty and light and a little high. This resulted in a brief stint of anorexia, which soon became bulimia, which I then had for almost 10 years. I never considered my bulimia from a nutritional point of view, as I thought I was healthy and that I ate well when not binging. I always figured it was purely psychological. Looking back, I can see that the urge to binge was a survival mechanism: my body’s alarm bell to eat something of substance. In a binge, I could eat a whole tub of peanut butter in one sitting. My body craved fats so much. I did a lot of therapy to recover, but nothing stuck until I started eating 3 solid meals a day plus snacks, and stopped restricting any foods.
Oh, and I was raised vegetarian and didn’t eat meat until my 30s. think of my nutritional stores and despair.
Miraculously, I conceived last year at the age of 32, without trying. Interestingly, I had just started eating meat 6 months prior and was eating loads of good quality dairy and getting plenty sunlight. I have your podcast to thank, as it helped me reconsider vegetarianism and let go of my familial conditioning ❤️
I type this whilst nursing my beautiful 8 week old daughter. I worry about what the legacy of malnutrition has done and will do to her. But it’s not too late to show her what a nourished woman looks like.
Thank you for all that you share, Amber. Your writing is so inspiring to me.
What a beautiful and hopeful story Lorena, thank you for sharing it!
I think of all the young women coming of age now on the internet and the deluge of health optimization information they are coming across. You and I were definitely outliers for reading those books at that age, but for them the same influence and framework is in the air they breathe.
Totally 😮💨
Gosh yes, this.
Always waiting for the next secret that will unlock perfect health, perfect joy, perfect happiness.
We MUST do this and that, we MUST pair this with that, etc, etc.
I’ve given it all up for now. I’m with you —-when I listen to others, I stop listening to myself.
Sure a high protein breakfast might be beneficial for many measurable reasons.
But what truly nourishes me?
Eating scones and tea and cream and fruit. Or sometimes a homemade cookie with coffee on the porch. Sometimes just toast and butter and water.
We’re gonna be okay. We’re also gonna be sick and tired sometimes and that’s okay too. And then we’re gonna die.
I’m done stressing about levels and how many things I need to do or eat or take to make up for everything that’s missing.
I’m going to eat well, the way my mother taught me (I’m lucky that way) and I’m going to eat in a way that makes me feel GOOD and TAKEN CARE OF.
Thanks for the share, Amber 💕
"We’re gonna be okay. We’re also gonna be sick and tired sometimes and that’s okay too. And then we’re gonna die." This line really resonates Sadie.
I wish I could view a parallel life where I never took *any* health advice- even things I believe in and practice now like a high protein breakfast- and could see the outcome of that approach on my health. Would the lack of stress and fear over doing it "right" mean that simple toast with butter would nourish me in that life just as much as I believe my meaty eggy breakfast does now?
Very happy to see at least one person in the comments had a well nourished mother!
I love this.
Thank you for sharing Amber. I am navigating hormonal changes ( same age as you) having a baby 2 days after I turned 38) moving a million times, nursing baby for 4.5 yrs, stress stress stress of my whole life and welll.... I feel you. Gently treading the mineral path with sleepy feet and going with the hormonal flow which is unnerving at times.... thank you for your information on thyroid as well!
I grew up with a single mom, who was a nurse and who would take me to jazzersize classes other her! Haha- we ate well lots of fruit veg and meats with lots of processed food as well. I'm happy she was too thrifty to buy massive amount of junk food and would make us snacks or get less gnarly options... she is and was so beautiful and also embodied a self loathing that I struggle to shake today. We owe it to all the woman in our lines to love ourselves... no matter what our brains tell us.💗💗💗 thank you for being you and sharing your tale... it ripples
I have had so many women share with me something along the lines of "my mother was so beautiful and also embodied a self loathing that I struggle to shake today". I am glad so many of us today are aware of the effect this self loathing can have on our children (esp daughters), which brings me to your line "We owe it to all the woman in our lines to love ourselves." Yes. Thank you.
Love this idea of healing forward. I so much relate to your journey to figure out how to nourish yourself. I'm more your mom's age, but food has been a tough thing to figure out--what to eat and why. I too have cycled through lots of different modes. At times I've felt as if I achieved optimum health, as in flowing rivers of energy and a bright and hopeful outlook, and then all that will fall apart. I recently found out that flour products leave me highly inflamed. That discovery was a sad day, because I've been determined to be an omnivore and eat a diverse, high-nutrient diet. I'm so glad you're committed to figuring this out and sharing your discoveries with us. Also, so glad you're doing a Substack. Your podcasts got me through the pandemic, not gonna lie. I felt as if I'd found my tribe when I found you. I remember you saying how much you want to write, and now you're doing it!
My mom's name was Janis :-)
The more robust our metabolic health, the less inflamed we will be. I am inspired by the many people who have healed their food sensitivities. I am still deep in food reactivity myself but share your ideal of wanting to eat a diverse array. I believe it is possible to get there again.
For myself, I see that I used my high energy times to plow through my limits and achieve as much as possible. If I regain that same energy ever again I will be interested to learn how to recognize the need for rest and slowing down even when I feel good.
Thank you for the reflection on the podcast and my oft-stated desire to write! It feels really good.
In lieu of most flour products try einkorn wheat. Genetically unchanged for 2,000 years.
I grew up food insecure between two households, both with different patterns of disordered eating. My father lived on two hard boiled eggs, a liter of Coca Cola, and a side-plate portion of whatever dinner we ate. This was partially due to frugality (making sure his kids had enough) and partially due to his eating disorder, that I only came to recognize as such after coming out the other side of my own rollercoaster of eating disorders in my thirties. His struggles to put food on the table manifested in food shaming us for eating too much. I'll never forget being yelled at for making an after-school snack of the only food I could find, a flour tortilla warmed in the microwave and spread with margarine. The snack was unhealthy, and also, those tortillas were for dinners!
My mother was like your mother, crash dieting her way through having it all as a single mother. We were also food insecure at her house, but she tried to keep nutritious options (or what was considered "healthy" in the 90s: rice milk, raw nuts, dried fruit, tigermilk bars) available. But my mother, the woman I thought was the most beautiful woman in the world, thought she was ugly and fat, and if she was ugly and fat, then my crooked teeth having, pot bellied, bubble butt had to be a walking grotesque anomaly. I started Slimfast when I was eleven, begging my mother to let me have it and winning the argument because it meant she only had to spend $2 a day for my breakfast and lunch.
Three decades after starting that first diet and I finally feel like I am standing on solid ground when it comes to knowing what my body needs, but doing it is still sometimes difficult. Junk food is still a comfort, though the pull is not nearly as strong as it was when I was binge eating, and fast food still has an emotional hold on me (Taco Bell was a major reward/treat when I was a kid), but I no longer beat myself up if I eat something bad, and I try to make better choices and move toward long term goals of nourishment at a slow and sustainable pace. Your podcast is a huge part of that process for me, and I don't think I'd be where I am now if a dear friend hadn't recommended it a little over two years ago. <3
I am so glad the podcast has supported you Chelsea. Thank you for sharing this story! Reading all the comments and replies- seeing just how many of us grew up in households with disordered eating- really drives home why my generation is struggling so mightily with food and metabolic wellness.
Ooof. I feel a lot of this in my bones. The part about constantly looking outside ourselves for the answers. I am fortunate however, that although I was also raised by a single working mama, I miraculously had a nourished childhood. I say miraculously because I’m 44 and the low fat trend of the 80s was a doozy (I didn’t escape margarine unfortunately).
If I look back matrilineally, I have many thanks to give to my grandmother who, even though she tragically fell for the “feed tour babies formula instead of breast milk” propaganda of the 40s and 50s, fed her 8 children homemade whole food from their garden and livestock. My mom grew up with a milk cow, chickens and a garden. My grandmother canned so prolifically I mourn that that way of living was lost in just two generations.
I was born on an herb farm and my folks hitchhiked to the Oregon coast with me as a baby. The mossy, wet forest where they built the yurt we lived in fed my biome in those early years. Along with the fact my mom gave me zero vaccines (I ask her about this and there is no ideology-just: “I don’t know. You seemed fine. I didn’t think you needed them”)
Bulgar wheat with veggies and cheese, organic hot dogs, so much chicken (tragically no organ meats like she grew up on). Eggs and yogurt. And way too many crackers and canned, frozen juice (remember those!?)
So even tho I had processed I was still nourished. And the land that I was running wild on nourished me deeply (all hail feral childhoods held in love).
As I grew, I was of course influenced by all the bullshit I read in magazines and have tried a million different diets (nothing radical, fasting does NOT work for me) and have only recently began to ask myself “wait, why do I need this supplement? DO I need it? Who told me I need it?”
My immune system is (knock on wood) profoundly robust and when i had my son he was hale and hearty (the fight against the overculture poison snacks and garbage food is real, especially since he chose public school this year 🥴)
This was really long. Apologies. I just felt moved to comment because appreciate you and the wisdom you share. Especially now you’re on this journey. Thank you for taking the time to share with us.
I felt compelled to share my story too. Even though it’s not in the same vein. The older I get, the more I realize how lucky I have been to have nourished and to have sustained energy in motherhood. I wish the same for every woman.
Thanks for reading this.
My husband also grew up as a feral, foraging child fed (at times) by a grandmother who was an accomplished home cook on the Oregon coast Selené!
I'm loving all of the shares and reflections. This topic is ripe. Thank you!
Wow, a lot of wisdom in your comment. Especially “hail feral childhoods”.
Also, super interested on Dave Asprey comment as my husband has listened to him for a while now
But once I heard him speak about optimizing his wife's fertility through microdosing caffeine and I thought OK, Does this guy hink he's mangod? it was off-putting,
so yeah that's been in my mind ever since
Some of Dave's stuff might work for some men, but I don't think it works (long term) for any woman. The pro-metabolic article I linked to above has a great take-down of the whole idea of biohacking.
Wow. I resonate with every single thing you wrote. For the last several years I have been seeking that next piece of info that will "heal" and "fix" me. I thought I had found it with the pro-metabolic diet only to find that it made everything worse for me. And last year when I turned 40, something in me shifted. I was dealing with the sudden weight of losing my father and my whole world turned upside down. My sleep was affected, my hormones went out of control and over the last year, I have generally not felt like myself. I do believe that my whole body shifted upon turning 40. I cant explain it. I just feel it.
I researched food and diets and kept trying to figure out what exactly was going to be the perfect thing to completely nourish me. As an herbalist, I relied heavily on the plants, but that only goes so far. What I finally realized the last couple of months is that, while I need to focus on healing on a deep, cellular level, I also understand that what is defined as "nourishment" changes for me daily. Some days its a grass fed burger, other days its a smoothie and then there are times when its chips and queso. I no longer shame myself or the food that I eat because I think the toxic culture around what we "should" or "shouldn't" eat is actually causing more harm than the food itself.
I had also became hyper focused on regulating my nervous system (its become such a trendy thing these days) and what I realized as a mom to a 6 year old boy, is that our nervous systems cant also be regulated. Yes, we want to get out of constant fight or flight, but also, we have to live our life. And that means that things get hard and our nervous system will respond. Meaning, there are a lot of times we are dysregulated. We can only try our best to find ways to manage our stress but in the end, the hyper fixation of regulating our nervous systems (mostly stemmed from the constant borage of influencers pushing it on us) can lead us to making things worse than they were in the first place. I have been in wellness groups where I see people literally stressing out nonstop about every single thing they are putting in their body or how they are living their life. Many women these days are giving their power away over to strangers on the internet telling them what to eat, what supplements to take, how to regulate their stress, etc. We are becoming so disconnected from our own bodies. And thats a scary thing.
This has become more of a ramble. Sorry about that. But all of this to say, I think what you are sharing is a common theme for many women. Please continue to share. We are here for it.
Everything you wrote resonates Lindsey. Every word of it. I even avoided the phrase "regulating my nervous system" in this piece for the very reasons you speak of.
If I may, I have found Jenna Hamm's work very helpful- https://www.instagram.com/feltsensewpg/
I had a similar experience with pro-metabolic when I was applying it as I had applied every other food ideology, but since deepening my understanding of Dr. Peat's work and shifting focus toward my own body's feedback I have found it very supportive- https://fundamentalnourishment.substack.com/p/pro-metabolic
It seems regulating one’s nervous system just replaced the term ‘good vibes only’ - I think a lot of people think it just means being calm and peaceful all the time. When really it means being able to move in and out of states as needed. Our nervous system has different states for survival.
Yea it's like a repeat of the toxic positivity trend we had 10 years ago
Thanks for sharing your journey and story. What a mess we live in, with the hooks of purity or thinness or low fat or strict diets of any kind.
I grew up kind of different - my mom was very strict in our health food, as she was hypoglycemic and trying out all the health food options. Weird soybean casseroles, liver and onions, all home cooked, ancestral type eating. And so many supplements! And pressure to "work hard to be healthy". So when I was diagnosed with hashimotos and graves disease my journey was about undoing the pressure and the guilt and shame. I tried so many things to heal my thyroid, and ultimately I think that IFS (inner parts) therapy did it- giving expression to the multitude inside me. And now I HATE taking supplements, but am finding a love for herbal tinctures from chinese medicine.
I deeply appreciate these lines from you:
"No matter what I do for my children- how I feed them or what values I instill- while they’re still at home, the culture is an overwhelming force.
And the culture is deeply unwell."
I worry about how my 8 year old son will fare, being bombarded by all the depleted garbage food around us, and his attraction to it, and how to instill grounded values in him - without the pressure and shame I took on about health in my childhood.
Blessings to all of us mothers!
I love reading how helpful IFS has been for you. I have dabbled, but this encourages me to dive deeper.
I'd like to write more about this fine line mothers walk between supporting our childrens' health and not stressing them out about food and health. It feels impossible at times.
And I agree, it feels impossible about nurturing health for our kids in this sick world. Please do write more about it!!
Ps my website is InnerArtistry.space if you’re interested in trying an ifs session with me and want to see who I am and what I offer! Of course no pressure or strings attached!
If you'd like to try a free IFS session, I'd be happy to give you one. A single session may qualify as more dabbling, but it still might be wonderful!
marta@innerartistry.space
Thank you for sharing, Amber. My story is very similar to yours — except that I seem to have started at even more of a deficit. My mother was terribly malnourished her whole life and my health started to go off the rails very early. I flailed around desperately for an answer, and cutting wheat helped me to stabilize for a bit. I thought I’d figured it out. Then I had a baby, not realizing how deeply depleted I still was, and the 2.5 years of breastfeeding nearly killed me. I became increasingly orthorexic, trying to find The Answer to my health problems. Stress has taken a toll in recent years as well. Finally seeing the full picture, understanding that light and community and movement are just as important as food, has helped a lot. I’m looking forward to getting my minerals back up once I’m back in the states and I can see where my levels are at.
The Answer must be out there somewhere!
Yes to light and community and movement, thank you for naming that Shayla.
I am 34 and I'm scared because I've hit this point a couple of years ago. 15 years of being health conscious and every year my health just gets worse. And how much money have I wasted on supplements; yet I still keep buying them!! Grr
thanks for sharing. this needs to be a revolution!! in so many of the points you touch on ~ that the constant-go mentality of our culture may "work for some" (I don't know that it really "works" just doesn't result in total depletion), but many others, due to our inherited genetics(!!!!!), will totally crash and burn without way more scheduled in rest than our culture seems to allow for. that diet + wellbeing lifestyle approaches would better benefit us all if they each started with a self-assesment: not only HTMA, bloodwork, family history, but also, a rekindling of our capacity to listen to our inner knowing!! it is KEY to knowing how to fuel ourselves - this ability to actually hear, and actually HEED, the messages coming from within.
Thank you for sharing such a vulnerable story and for how you're coming back to trust in your own answers, your own wisdom. I've been thinking and writing recently on how our constant search for that something in the wellness world isn't helping us in quite the way we think and there are so many overlaps with your experiences here. There's a different kind of nourishment in coming back to ourselves that we all need right now.
Thank you for your honesty Amber, and for sharing your searching. I grew up in rural New Zealand and we did eat well however through my fathers work we were exposed to agricultural chemicals. Both of my sisters and I didn’t eat in the most nourishing ways throughout childbearing years, and we also undertook too much physical work while pregnant and breastfeeding and now we all have thyroid problems. We are all committed to balancing our minerals and nourishing our bodies, and trying to learn to actually rest … and wish we knew all of this years ago!
Amazing that you have your sisters to walk this path with you Chloe!
"I wish I knew all of this years ago" is a frequent thought of mine as well.