024: Combatting Lyme Disease and Brain Fog with Carnivore, Keto, and other Whole Food Approaches, with Andrea Barrick, NTP

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Hey, hey, welcome back to Real Food Mental Health with Cody Cox.I had a real pleasure talking with my guest today.Her name is Andrea Barrick.She's a certified nutritional therapy practitioner like myself.But the reason I love talking with other NTPs is, not only do we have the same training, but we have different training too.In many cases, other NTPs have had additional training that maybe I haven't had, or I've had training that they haven't had.We also have different personal experiences.And so, you'll definitely see that in today's episode.Andrea, a little bit about her, she recovered from an autoimmune disease and chronic illness that left her bedridden.And she did this through nutrition, when doctors weren't really being that helpful.She now helps other people do the same with lifestyle and diet.In today's episode, we particularly talk about gut health, carnivore diets, ketogenic diets, and also, I know it seems counterintuitive, but the concept that most Americans are actually not eating enough.So backwards, I know.Maybe it's just that we're not eating enough of the right foods, and we are eating too much of the wrong foods.It really depends on the person, but in many cases, we are not eating enough.Listen to today's episode to hear more details.Welcome back to the Real Food Mental Health Podcast, where we explore the powerful connection between mental and physical health.My name is Cody Cox, a holistic nutritional psychotherapist, and I'm here to guide you on a journey to true wellness, mind, body, and spirit.If you're tired of quick fixes and want real solutions that address the root cause, you're in the right place.Let's get started on your path to lasting wellness.Welcome back to Real Food Mental Health with Cody Cox.Today, I have Andrea Barrick.Andrea, welcome.Hey, Cody.Thanks for having me.So, Andrea, you are a nutritional therapy practitioner like myself.I will actually want to start with your personal journey.What led you to nutritional therapy?Did you have your own NTP that you hired, or did you just kind of figure it out yourself, and you decided that you wanted to become an NTP?Yeah, so my story is long, but I'll try and pull out the special pieces.It kind of started when I was young.I was about eight, and I started getting a lot of panic attacks, and muscle spasms, and joint pain, and I would go to the doctors, and they're like, there's nothing wrong with you.You'll grow out of it.You know, all those things.So fast forward, I ended up getting a traumatic brain injury in middle school, which led to more issues.And then in high school, I started to get digestive issues, hormonal issues, and I was just like chronically fatigued, had crazy brain fog, and I had no idea what was going on.So I actually ended up finding a chiropractor because I had a sports injury, and she used the low-level light therapy on my sports injury, and it healed it.And I was like, okay, well, I have all these other things going on.Do you think you can help me with that?And she ended up doing muscle testing, which is uncertified in muscle testing as well.And she, you know, she muscle tested me, and there were some food sensitivities, and I was eating too much sugar, and, you know, all those things.So I reduced my refined sugar and my wheat intake, and most of my symptoms either resolved or got better.But as time went on, I strayed away from that path, I guess you could say, and I started pursuing other goals.I had ended up working for her, got my certification, was seeing patients, but I just was in my young 20s.I'm in my 20s still, but I was like 1920, and I still didn't know what I wanted to do with my life.So I went off the track, and then I ended up becoming bedridden at age 23.I had contracted COVID, and I recovered completely fine.And then one day, I woke up, and I went to work out, and I got super dizzy, and I couldn't breathe.And so like I'm just dehydrated, there's nothing wrong.And then the next day, it happened again, and I ended up in the emergency room, and they're like, there's something wrong with your heart.You need to go see a cardiologist.And I just, ever since that day, I couldn't get out of bed.I would sit up, my heart rate would spike, my blood pressure would drop, and I eventually got a diagnosis of POTS and lupus.And they, the Western medicine world offered me nothing.They gave me either anxiety medication or like things to reduce my pain, which I'm like, I don't have, I mean, yeah, I'm anxious because I don't feel good and there's something wrong, but it's not like I don't have anxiety, you know?And so I went back to where I used to work and she's actually an NTP herself.Not the doctor that I worked for, but she had another employee over there.And I was like telling her everything that was going on.She's like, I think you have Lyme disease.And she's like, you need to go carnivore.And I was like, what?No, that's crazy.We need all these other things.But at that time, I was desperate.I had lost, I mean, 40, 50 pounds.I could barely walk.I couldn't drive.It was, I was miserable.And, oh, I wanted to back up, actually.Let me back up a little bit.Because when I was bedridden, it wasn't just physical pain that I was experiencing.I had terrible psychosis.And I was hearing things and seeing things.I begged my mom to take me to psych.Because I just had so much inflammation in my brain and my body.And I had no idea what was going on.I'm so blessed that my mom did not take me to the psych ward because they probably would have just given me medication and sent me home.But during that time, I would just lock myself in the bedroom because I was scared I was going to hurt myself.I was scared I was going to hurt other people because of the intrusive thoughts and everything that I had to deal with with my illness.Because I had lost everything, right?I was bedridden.I lost, I was failing school.I was going to school for American Sign Language.I had to drop out of my classes.I couldn't go to church.I couldn't do anything.I lost, I had two jobs at the time.I lost both of my jobs.And I was just, I was desperate.So I reached out to her.Her name is Megan.She is the owner of Natural Health Practices now down in Florida.And she was like, I think you have Lyme disease.And that's when I went down the rabbit hole of all of those.So we ended up finding black mold in my house.And I think that was mostly the contributor to all of the mental health issues.And I was also working in one of the restaurants I worked at.It had black mold in it too.And so, yeah, I was just living in it and working in it.And then I got COVID, and it's just like everything just piled up.And my body couldn't handle it anymore.And so I ended up going carnivore, which helped tremendously.I think mostly because I wasn't eating and I started eating again.So within two weeks, I got some of my strength back.My mental clarity came back.The intrusive thoughts didn't totally go away.That took a while, but they definitely subsided a lot to where I was able to fight, get up and fight.And so that was, I'll be 27 in April.So that was about four years ago all of this happened.And I no longer have the lupus diagnosis.I was able to reverse that.And then my POTS, I'm still working on it.I'm very functional.I don't really, I rarely have any symptoms, but when they test me in the clinic, I do still have like the orthostatic intolerance.Those tests come back positive.But I eat well, I eat enough, and drink a lot of salt and water, and it seems to keep me at bay.You drink salt water.I do.Yeah, my cardiologist is like, when I first got sick, because she's like, I don't want to put you on beta blockers.You're young.And I was like, cool, thanks.And she was like, but you need to start consuming a lot of salt.And she's like, I typically don't tell my patients this, but you need a lot of salt and water because my blood pressure was so low.And that's when I was like looking into all of these things.I had low potassium and low blood pressure, and those are all symptoms of exposure to black mold.Interesting.And so the carnivore diet helped tremendously.I've been curious.I haven't done a carnivore diet myself, but it seems to be a theme that I keep hearing from guests.That when there's a severe issue, like what you have just described, typically the carnivore will help reverse it.How does somebody go into carnivore?Did you just kind of dive right into it, cold turkey, or did you transition?Or maybe you dived into it cold turkey, but you wish you had transitioned in a better way.Like, what do you think?You know, I, like I said, I had such brain fog and mental things going on at the time.The only thing I remember, so I was only eating cauliflower and onions cooked in olive oil and like zucchini.Like those were my only like, quote unquote, safe foods at the time, because I had eaten meat and I had gotten hives from it.And so that was I was having allergic reactions to everything.And then, so I went down the rabbit hole of like mass cell activation syndrome, which is triggered by either like viruses, mold, you know, you can get it from all those things.And so I was actually really hesitant to start carnivore because meat can have high histamine.Yeah.But I found Rebecca Heishman.I'm not sure if you're familiar with her, but she struggled with chronic illness for years, and she ended up doing carnivore.She had mass cell issues, and I was able to find meat that was either frozen upon being butchered, so the histamine was lower, and then I like wouldn't recook my food.So overnight, I went from eating cauliflower the next day, I bought some frozen ribeyes, and I ordered lamb on billy-dough meats, and they shipped it to my house.And I ate ribeyes and lamb shoulders for like a year straight, and I wouldn't change it for the world.I jumped right into it, and I was already doing electrolytes because of the hot stagnosis, so I think my transition...And I wasn't really eating anything anyways, so I think my transition was a lot better, but it was more out of desperation than I'm trying to lose weight, you know?Because if you're trying to lose weight, I think transitioning is better because...You have time.Well, you have time, but also, you could just still be under-eating, and if your metabolism is slow and you're under-eating and then you just start eating more food, like more protein, you're not necessarily going to lose weight.So there's other factors that play in with the carnivore diet, because then if you just start eating meat and then you reduce your calories and you're just going to slow your metabolism down even more, and then you're going to plateau and you're going to wonder why you can't lose any more weight.So that's a whole other hole to go down.There are a lot of holes that we could go down, especially since we're both NTPs.But so I mentioned how carnivore seems to be the trend that I'm noticing among many of my guests.Another one is keto.And that's where I've spent a lot of my time doing research, is in the ketogenic sphere of things.And that typically does require a little bit of a transition.It kind of depends on the person, of course.But you mentioned electrolytes.Typically, if you're just taking electrolytes, that's really all you need, and you can avoid the so-called keto flu.And I would imagine carnivore is similar, because carnivore is basically keto but more restrictive.Yep.Yeah, absolutely.And then for people to become fat-adapted, just like if they were doing keto, you need to be eating more fat than you are protein, and of course, carbohydrates.You can have a little bit of carbohydrates on a keto diet, but you want your fat to be high so that your body starts utilizing the fat instead of burning glucose.So, and I think that helps with the chronic.I think that's one of the main components of what helped me so much, because my body was in a glucose-burning state and not a fat-burning state.Now, I've been curious about, like, the brain fog.How quickly would you say that that cleared up for you?When I started carnivore, I'd say probably within a month.I mean, it was like a day and night and day difference.I mean, I had noticed really quickly that my mental health and my brain fog was improving.I kind of wonder if brain fog is actually a pretty common thing, and most people just don't notice that it's a problem.They just think they're tired.Is that kind of your read on things, too?Like, that's just what I'm getting from people as I work with people in psychotherapy.My brain fog feels more like, not that I'm tired, but almost like I'm stupid.Like, I can't concentrate.I can't, like, it's, it's interesting.It's like, it's almost like I can't see straight.Like, I just, it's so foggy, right?I think fatigue, like, chronic fatigue definitely has something to do with it, and our adrenals play a big part in all of that.And I see a lot of people who think they're fatigued, though, but they're actually, like, depressed.I've seen that a lot.And they often go hand-in-hand.If a person is depressed, quite often they also have low energy.And so, I mean, that's why we look at these things holistically, because there are so many different factors that can play into a person's health.It's not just, oh, you have depression, let's give you this one-size-fits-all protocol.It's very bio-individual.Right.Yeah.But yeah, I think that's a good way to describe the brain fog.It's like you feel like you're stupid, like you can't think clearly, you can't see clearly, which I've experienced this myself before.It's not literally that you can't see clearly, but it's like that you mentally can't see clearly.I'm not quite sure how to describe that.But I do know what you're talking about just based on my experience, and I'm just wondering if brain fog is actually pretty common.And most people, they recognize that they feel kind of stupid, but they attribute it to being tired when it actually might be brain fog.And brain fog, I've actually done some recent research on this.Brain fog is a sign that you're not handling carbohydrates well.And so quite often, if you go on a ketogenic diet or a carnivore diet, which like I said, is also a ketogenic diet, you're cutting out the carbs, mostly or completely.And by doing that, you're allowing your body to reset, so that when you do start eating carbs, hopefully in their whole form, you'll be able to handle them better.Yeah, I've definitely, with the blood sugar spice and stuff, can cause the brain fog, but I just, I wanted to say something too, when I was in high school, and I started seeing Dr.Shelley, I didn't know I had brain fog until I didn't have it.Yeah.Like everything became so much clear, I was like, I felt like superwoman.I was like, this is great.Is this how we're supposed to feel all the time?Like I've never experienced this much clarity, and I could think, and I could study, and I could like do all these things.I'm like, this is great.And I used to not be like that.That's what I mean.I think a lot of people have it, but they think it's normal, so they don't question it.Yeah.So like, I mean, you hear cases all the time of Americans particularly, working that eight to five Monday through Friday job.There's always that afternoon slump, and yeah, that's a blood sugar thing to do.But they've got this brain fog that they don't realize is brain fog.They don't realize it's a clinical problem.They just think, oh, it's just the end of the day, or it's the end of the week.I can't wait until the weekend.Yeah.But if they can tackle that brain fog or balance their blood sugar a little bit better, which typically a ketogenic or carnivore diet can do that, they're going to feel so much better, like probably even better than they've ever felt, kind of like what you described.And then they'll realize, yes, I've had a problem all this time.Yeah.That's most patients, they realize, they're like, I, within a week of just like increasing their protein and reducing their carbs, they're like, we feel great.They're like, you've been missing out your whole life.No.But I did with the brain fog too.I've noticed since I was such strict carnivore, I slowly added foods back in, and I was able to see what foods caused issues and which foods didn't.And soy actually causes me to have brain fog.Oh, interesting.Yeah.So I try and stay away from soy.Carbs, not so much.When I started introducing carbs, I definitely, my body still, I feel like it wasn't metabolically flexible.And even like right now, I'm actually transitioning back into more ketogenic because I was doing more of just like a, not intuitive, but I was just kind of like adding food into my diet and trying to see what works well, what doesn't.And I was eating more carbs and just trying to do it that way.But I think I feel better, like carnivore, ketovore, kind of, I feel best that way for sure.I think most people will do better on a low carb diet.And I'm not saying keto, like, yeah, for some people keto, but at least low carb.We tend to abuse the carbs.But then also we were kind of talking before we started the recording about how most people actually under eat.And then when we do eat, what are we eating?We're eating carbs.Yep.So I can't help but think, I mean, obviously I'm a therapist myself, so I'm kind of biased to noticing these things among other therapists.I've had several jobs in just different environments as a therapist, and I've noticed that most therapists simply don't eat lunch.Yeah.And I think that's a lot of people, but if people are eating, what are they eating?Like I said, it's carbs, or maybe they're getting some fast food.It's still not great.So what would you recommend to the busy professional who maybe they only have a half-hour lunch break or maybe an hour if they're lucky?What would you recommend if they needed to eat lunch or get more calories in their day?Yeah.So well, first I just I want to talk about our metabolism a little bit because I think that'll help your audience understand why it is important to maintain a higher caloric intake because our body adapts to our environment.Our body is very smart.So when we start eating lower calories, it's going to slow our metabolism down.So if during the week, you're only eating 900 calories a day and then on the weekend, you're drinking beer and you're going out and you're having 3000 calories, plus your body is going to start utilizing those extra calories and turning it into fat because your body thinks that it's not going to get that amount of energy again.So doing those where you're hustling all week and then eating a lot or binging, that's where you see that weight gain quickly because your body is like, I'm in survival mode, I'm not getting enough and this right here, now that I have enough, I'm going to keep on hold on to it because I don't think I'm going to get any.So to speed up our metabolism, we need to have a steady influx of calories so that our body can feel safe and start utilizing those calories to actually help us breathe and make our hair grow, and obviously calm our stress responses.So for people who work the nine to five and have a hard time getting, I guess, a lunch break.I guess with my other job, I was strictly carnivore.What I would do was just pack meat.And I would just eat that.I mean, I would eat two patties for breakfast, two patties for dinner or for lunch, and then two patties for dinner.And it was easy and simple, and it wasn't stressful because I knew exactly what I was going to eat, and it was already prepared.But let me go back.So if you're working a 9 to 5, breakfast is definitely going to be super important.High protein, high fat.So eggs with sausage.Maybe you can throw in some veggies if you want.And that will hopefully sustain you, but it's still not going to be enough calories.So you're definitely going to have to have some type of lunch.I think meal prepping is just a secret to everything.Yeah.Just being prepared.I love this quote.It's failing to prepare is preparing to fail.So if you want to succeed and you don't want to end up with diseases and fatigue and brain fog, then you're just going to have to prepare and change those habits.So making sure you have some type of, again, high fat, high protein, munch so that you're not reaching for those carbohydrates is going to be really, really important.Hard-boiled eggs and chicken and any type of meat, and again, vegetables, if you're into that kind of thing.I guess it's a success.But even avocados, you can do sourdough bread and avocado and turkey, and or like a turkey and cheese roll up.Like those are good too if you're rushing between clients, and you need to eat something really quick.Obviously, I don't suggest you rushing and eating, because digestion does start in the brain.So it's really important to sit down and relax and eat your food, but there are some cases where that's not possible.So beef sticks, protein shakes, and the meat and cheese roll ups are really convenient in those times.And then for dinner, again, meal prepping or just cooking a good quality protein with some more of the complex carbohydrates, like sweet potatoes and Brussels sprouts and things like that.I mean, if you just stick to that, I mean, you should see improvement in all areas of your life.You know, restricting the processed foods and sticking to meat and vegetables and good quality fats, like avocado and fish, you'll be set.Yeah, I tell everybody, if you're not going to do anything else, just eat whole foods.Yep.And in most cases, people aren't already doing that, so they are improving their health by making that simple change.And when I say simple, I don't mean that it's easy.I mean, you have a company party, they order pizza or they have cake or or something that makes you want to eat it.And that's socially a very difficult thing to stay away when everybody else around you is eating it.But if you can stay away from that or go ahead and indulge a little bit, but make 90 percent or more of your diet whole foods, you're still going to feel better.Absolutely.Yep.I try to tell all my patients that like 90, if you can do even just 90 percent like whole foods, you're going to transform the way you feel.I mean, because you and I probably, we do the food logs with our patients, and we see what they're eating.And it's standard American diet of cereal in the morning, a sandwich for lunch, and probably something like lasagna or burgers for dinner.And it's like, all that food you ate today was not real.Yeah.And you wonder why you don't feel good.And here's something too.I mean, we think of burgers being unhealthy, but it really depends on how it's made.Yeah.So like, typically I have burgers maybe once a week or so, but they're bunless burgers, and with lots of vegetables, and from grass-fed cows.And so like, like you can make burgers pretty healthy.It just depends on how it's made.If you're buying it from McDonald's though, sorry, that's not going to be a good thing to eat.No, I definitely like, so for breakfast, I eat, I typically eat two grass-fed beef patties with eggs on top of them.And it's great.And I love it.But there's, and sometimes I'll put avocado on there.But no bread or anything like that.I do make my own sourdough bread every once in a while.I love homemade sourdough.I know.That's the problem is that I love it so much that I could eat the whole loaf.And so I just restrain from making it frequently.So I can't help but make it with white flour.I mean, it is organic white flour, but it's so hard to get it to rise if you're using whole wheat.Do you use whole wheat?So I use, yeah, I use einkorn flour, which is even harder for it to rise because it's lower in gluten.Yeah, it's not as elastic, too, because it's lower in gluten, so it doesn't stick together as much.Yeah, but I've made, I use the whole wheat einkorn flour, and I've made two or three loaves so far with it and without a problem.It just, sometimes it takes a little bit more, because I don't have a starter.I always have to make the starter, so the starter takes a little bit longer to make.But yeah, I typically have bread within 10 days.It's a long process.And Americans are very impatient.I think it's just a cultural thing.Ten days sounds like a long time, but when you think about it, if it's purely homemade, I mean, obviously, you're not growing the wheat yourself.But other than that, it's purely homemade.It's like, that's pretty good.I mean, 10 days, that's a reasonable time to be making a good, healthy loaf of bread.Well, and I think that, too, is part of why we see so much disease and even mental health as we've lost our connection with food.Like, food isn't supposed to be fast and convenient.Like, it takes days to make some things.Sometimes we're, like, fermenting our vegetables or letting our plants soak or sprout or, you know, butchering animals.Like, it'll take years sometimes to have a cow be in its prime to where you can kill it.Like, it's not something that's always ready and available.And I think we've lost our honor.Like, we don't honor our food anymore.And that's a big issue, I feel like.I often think about squirrels.I used to live in Arizona when I was in graduate school, where they have squirrels up in the mountains anyway.And they have a huge issue down there with, in the wintertime particularly, squirrels will get up, like, in the engine bay of your car and, like...Maybe it's rats.I think it's rats, too.They will chew on the wires under your car and build, like, a nest and get ready for the winter.But, like, I remember seeing a squirrel with cheeks full of nuts.And this squirrel was just going back and forth and taking those nuts to his or her nest for the winter.And it's like, that is such a long process.They're doing that all summer long.Yep.And humans are actually kind of meant to do that, too.I mean, we're not gathering nuts, but we have our own food that we need to prepare and we need to be patient with it.Because ultimately, when we are patient, we digest it better.It ends up being more nutrient dense.It's just all around higher quality.Yeah, I tell my patients this.I say, before grocery stores, would you be eating pineapple in the middle of winter?They're like, no.They're like, that's the problem right there.Like, we are so gluttonous and privileged, especially in America, that we get access to all of these certain types of food all year round, and that's not how we were designed to eat.Like, we can can things, like you said, and stock up for winter, but nobody's eating blueberries and strawberries in the middle of winter.Like, that's crazy.I mean, unless you live in, like, a tropical climate.Yeah, and that's just it.I think a lot of people, especially if they're on, like, the vegan train, they think that we should be eating more plant foods most of the time.Even if they're eating meat, it's like, it should mostly be plant foods that we're eating.But if you think about it ancestrally, that doesn't make sense at all.So right now, I live in northern Utah, not too far from the Idaho border, and it gets pretty cold here.We can't grow food for at least half of the year because it's so cold.And if we weren't in a drought, it would be really snowy, but right now, it's not.But either way, we can't grow food.And so ancestrally speaking, the people who lived here 200, 300 years ago in this same area, they weren't eating plant foods.What were they eating?Mostly meat.Yep.So in the wintertime, we really should be eating meat.And I mean, I'm not saying plant foods are bad to eat, but hopefully they're seasonal.Yeah.Food was never meant to travel 1500 miles before it reaches our plates.No, and God knows what else is sprayed on them and, yeah, you know, with them putting all those new chemicals and stuff.And it's just in our soil, too.I mean, our soil has just been, I guess this isn't really a good term, but it's been raped.I mean, they just keep tilling it and spraying chemicals on it to yield a harvest and it doesn't get time to rest.And it's almost sad because it's not how it's supposed to be.We're supposed to let the ground rest, and we're supposed to have those other crops be planted to put nutrients into the soil with the regenerative agriculture, and have the animals fertilize the land, or even animals who just die, leave them on the ground so it can go into the ground, and we just disregard the circle of life.Yeah, that's funny that you said that, right?As I was thinking the words, the circle of life, and of course, I'm thinking of the Lion King, too.But yeah, I mean, we tend to disrupt that circle, don't we?And in doing so, we are creating disease for ourselves.Yeah, I totally agree, 100 percent.If you want to support this podcast, go to kofi.com/codycox.That's kofi.com/codycox.I think glyphosate too has a lot to do with brain fog.Yeah, I mean, glyphosate or other toxins, I mean, they're not just using glyphosate, but that definitely is one of the big ones.They're spraying on the crops.And even some organic foods have glyphosate, and I mean, in much, much smaller amounts.So anybody who's listening to this, don't just assume that organic is not worth it, it totally is.Well, it's going to have a trace amount of poisons in it still.But I would personally rather have a trace amount of poison instead of eating food that had the poison directly sprayed on it.Yeah, yeah, absolutely.And I that that's just a contributing factor, though, to leaky gut, which is a huge, huge factor to mental health issues and brain fog.When our gut becomes permeable, all those toxins and food particles that aren't supposed to be outside of our gut gets into our bloodstream, and our body will start attacking it, just like any kind of autoimmune disease.It's just all connected.And when people come to me with anxiety and depression and brain fog, I'm like, let's take a look at your gut.What are you eating?Are you going to the bathroom every day?Do you have acid reflux?You know, all these things, they're so important.Or gas is one that I think a lot of people think is pretty normal.Yeah.But if you have a lot of gas, it's probably not so normal, or maybe it is normal, but it's not healthy.So I guess I should clarify that.Normal is not necessarily healthy.When I mean for that whole year of carnivore, I mean, I had like no gas, none.And then when I started adding food back in, I'm like, oh, this is weird.This is what caused my bloating and my gas.This is crazy.And then I had a couple of patients actually this week.I told him to stop eating salad.And he's like, what?Salad is good for you.And I'm like, just trust me, just stop eating salad.And next, like this week when he, when he talked to me, he was like, I have no more gas.And I'm like, it probably was the salad causing the issues.Something to do with the oxalates, the just the carbohydrates in general.There was some issue where he wasn't digesting properly.Well, yeah, so, oh, well, most of the fibers like the FODMAPs, right?Those can cause a lot of issues.It probably wasn't organic, so it's probably a bunch of pesticides on it.And yeah, just the fiber in general, like we don't, fiber is important in some cases, but it's, we don't really need excess fiber, especially if our gut microbiome is not healthy.It's just going to exacerbate the unhealthy, unbalance.What causes a person to have leaky gut?I don't think there's just one thing.I think it's accumulation of things.Stress is definitely a big one.Eating processed food.Not like having your circadian rhythm all messed up.So not having adequate amounts of red light to blue light can definitely mess up our gut.Not chewing your food enough.Like there's those simple things, right?That people just, because we just inhale our food because we're hustling and we're stressed.And all of these things.I think stress is definitely the biggest component.Because when I, I know when I get stressed, my gut is the first thing that gets messed up.That may not be for everybody, but I definitely know, notice that if I'm stressed or I don't sleep well or any of those things, my gut is, I get symptoms in my gut immediately.I guess I've never taken the time to really research that specific thing.But how does stress mess up the gut?Like I've always kind of intuitively known that they're connected.How does it work?Do you know?So cortisol, right?Or hormones in our adrenaline.When we're in our sympathetic state, our body doesn't produce the correct enzymes to actually break down food.And so when you eat and you're stressed, you're not going to actually break down your food properly.So then you'll start to get the acid reflux.And if you didn't break, if the acids in your stomach didn't break down your food properly, when it goes into the intestines, it can start to get backed up, which will cause the imbalance, or people call it SIBO, because then you get constipated.And then vice versa, too, you can get loose stools.You can, like, if you ever get really anxious or stuffy, you may have to run to the bathroom.It's an influx typically of hormones.Hormones affect our gut tremendously.The adrenaline, the cortisol, even like, so, like, women, when we go through our phases, we get a lot of bloating and even constipation in certain areas of our cycle because our estrogen and progesterone flip-flop.And if you're sensitive to those, you can get a lot of digestive issues.So I think hormones play a big role in it.And then when you look further down the hormone trail, it's stress, typically.And then when I mean stress too, it's not just mental and psychological stress.There are stressors in our life that affect our nervous system like chemicals, heavy metals, the food we eat, and our environment like mold, Lyme disease, all those things can affect our nervous system, which then affects our gut.And we were talking earlier too about people not eating enough.That can mess with your hormones and cause leaky gut.Yes.Yep, absolutely.Yeah, especially if you're not eating enough cholesterol.The cholesterol gets a bad rap, and cholesterol is what our body uses to create bile, which breaks down fats, and fats are what carry nutrients into our body.So like vitamin D, that's a fat-soluble vitamin, and then our hormones, well, vitamin D is typically a hormone, but our other hormones need fat to be stabilized.And so a lot of people with infertility, or low libido, or anything like that, I typically will look at their fat intake.I'm like, you are not eating enough saturated cholesterol fats.Let's up those.And of course, they're always relunctant, because of the bad rap that cholesterol has.But I try to teach them about triglycerides and all the other things that can contribute to heart disease.And you don't need to be scared of these things.So yeah, I mean, it's just, it's an array of things, right?It's not just one magic pill or one diet change, or, you know, one thing.It's a whole lifestyle change that you need to make, typically, when you have leaky gut.And when we talk about all these things, I can see how it would be really overwhelming, and people would just give up.But just start with one thing.Yep.One thing, and once you get comfortable with that, move to the next thing.But, you know, of course, keep the first thing going, too.So for me, like, personally, I don't eat enough.I know I don't eat enough.And I know better.I know better.But when I do eat, it's usually pretty nutrient dense foods anyway.Yeah.So like, my first priority right now is actually fixing my sleep because I haven't been sleeping well for the past year or so.And but food can play a role in to how well you sleep, too.I mean, there's the blood sugar.There's just a lot of things happening in the brain that rely on proper nutrients.Yeah.And when you're stressed, it depletes your minerals, and protein really helps us regulate our cortisol.So if you're not sleeping well because you're up all night thinking about things, eating adequate amounts of protein because of all of those different amino acid chains, it's going to definitely help you sleep better.Do you try and eat your body weight in protein or no?No.More so because I'm focused on eating in general, and it just ends up being nutrient-dense foods.Yeah.And that can be a hard thing for people to achieve too, because if you're trying to eat your ideal body weight in grams of protein, I don't know what that means for most people.We'll just throw out a number, 160 pounds.160 grams of protein every day seems like a lot.It is.And I mean, how much meat is that?How many hamburger patties?Yeah.That's typically, so I eat 150 grams of protein a day.Okay.I eat 50 grams per meal.And that would be like two pieces, about eight ounces of meat per meal.So about a pound and a half of meat a day, but you can get protein from eggs and dairy.I try not to get the plant proteins, but if you're into that thing, you can do beans and rice and oats, and you can get protein from that, too.And then obviously, like, if you don't reach your goal in whole foods, you can always supplement with a protein powder, which I think is good in the beginning.But I've gotten to a point where the only time I'm really reaching for my protein powder is if I'm running around and I didn't have time to eat.But yeah, I try to reach my...That is one thing that I am a stickler about, is reaching my protein every day.And I think that's easier if you're on a carnivore or a keto diet for sure, because you are eating mostly meat.Yeah.And I think I know the answer to this, but just for listeners who might not know, why wouldn't you want to eat plant proteins?Yeah, so plant proteins are beneficial.I don't want to...I hate bashing plants because I...Yeah, they're not necessarily bad.No, they're not.They're just...They have anti-nutrients in them, which are harder for our bodies to break down.And anti-nutrients are things like oxalates, lectins, phytic acids.These things actually protect the plants because they don't have a defense mechanism that is their defense mechanism.Yeah, they can't just slap you in the face if you try to pick them out of the ground.Exactly.Exactly.So, and that's why even in today's world, if you go out, you're not just going to eat a random blueberry because you don't know if it's poisonous or not.So, if you are eating plant proteins, try to soak them, sprout them, ferment them.But also, the nutrients isn't as bioavailable as it is an animal protein, which simply means we don't digest the protein like we do in animal proteins.Plant proteins have fiber, which we don't digest fiber.It just helps our microbiome a little bit.But fiber inhibits the absorption of nutrients.So, when you eat animal protein, you probably get more like 75 to probably 90% of the protein you digest, where if you're eating plant protein, you're probably only getting like 20%.So, if you're...Plus, if you want like 15 grams of protein, you're going to have to eat like six cups of broccoli.Nobody wants to eat that.You're going to be bloated.Your digestion system is not going to thank you.It has more calories, which isn't so bad to be high calorie, but you're just going to get so much more nutrients out of animal products because they have...Meat has literally almost everything besides vitamin C.I mean, it has all of our B vitamins, iron, selenium, zinc, like everything.Doesn't meat help you produce your own vitamin C, though, too, at least a little bit?I have not heard that.Yeah, I will look into it, but...I mean, obviously, we get a lot dietarily, but I think our body does produce some vitamin C on its own with the help of proper proteins.Yeah, it may not be an essential vitamin, but I know that when you reduce your carbohydrates, you don't need as much vitamin C, because vitamin C and glucose are metabolized the same way.So if you have high sugars in your diet or high carbohydrates, the vitamin C is going to compete with the carbohydrates.So if you reduce your carbohydrate intake, you won't have to have as much vitamin C.You were talking about how meat or animal products generally are more bioavailable, and I was thinking that's probably why carnivore and keto are so therapeutic for most people.Yeah.And yeah, you can actually be keto and be vegetarian.It's possible, but carnivore, definitely.People tend to have nothing but positive results from a carnivore diet if they're doing it properly.And I think it's just because it's so bioavailable, and if you have major gut issues, your body can still digest it pretty well, with the exception of maybe low hydrochloric acid.Did you ever supplement with hydrochloric acid when you went carnivore?I was on a bunch of stuff.I probably had it in there somewhere.I definitely, like, I always keep, it's a product called Xipan for standard process.I always keep that on me, especially if I eat out, just because of the oils, and I don't know what else is in there.So it helps break down that, but I typically, I think your body, once you start increasing your protein, your body will adjust.I think that's a hurdle I think people can get over if they just continue to do it, because your body's like, oh, I'm finally getting more protein.Let me produce more enzymes to break it down.But yeah, definitely, like, ox bile was beneficial for me.I have a gallbladder, but I had, um, I had a lot of parasite issues.I had a lot of liver flukes and stuff, so I had to do, like, a parasite cleanse and get those out.And now my gallbladder works straight, but it wasn't prior.So yeah, and that's, yeah, I say those things too, because everybody's so different.Everybody has different needs, and that's why I think it's super important to work with somebody like you or I, because we can look at it as a bigger picture and say, hey, actually, this may not work for you because of X, Y, and Z.Why don't we focus on this first?You know?Let's just eat whole foods and don't go straight carnivore, you know, so we can, like, guide them.Yeah, I actually started this podcast because I wanted to get this information out there, and, like, and I know it is out there in other ways, and even on other podcasts, but you don't hear a lot of this stuff coming from psychotherapists.Right.And I wanted people to see the connection between mental health and not just nutrition, but lifestyle.And if you remember from one of our textbooks, the Digestive Wellness textbook, it says right at the beginning that the word diet, the word diet comes from the ancient Greek, which means a manner of living.And so when you think about diet and lifestyle, they're kind of like synonyms.Yeah.And but because it's all so interrelated, I've even thought about changing the name of this podcast because it's like it's not just about mental health.It's about wellness, overall health.Absolutely.Yeah, I tell my patients, I'm like diet is more than just what you put in your mouth.It's your environment, it's what you listen to, it's who you surround yourself with, it's what you look at.Anything that you're putting into your body or into your soul or into your brain.I mean, it's all going to affect you and shape you and change your DNA actually.It's like trauma, trauma can trigger disease in people because it turns on certain genes in their DNA and it'll make them have different diseases be expressed.So yeah, totally.I actually heard from several different sources in the last few years.What we think is genetic or hereditary is actually, it's like six percent.Six percent of disease comes from our parents, our grandparents, our ancestors.But the other 94 percent really depends on our lifestyle.Like, how are we going to live so that our genes can express themselves in a healthy way?Yeah, exactly.That's another thing I try to have to tell my patients.I'm like, diabetes doesn't run in your family.It's because nobody runs in your family, you know?And you know, they laugh.But I'm like, look, it's, you have to learn about epigenetics, which is the environmental factor of our life.And that's one reason why my grandmother actually had lupus.And so when I was, when I got diagnosed, they're like, oh, it's hereditary.Like you'll just have it.Like, you know, your grandmother had it.You're going to have it.And I'm like, but no, I didn't accept it as, and I think that too with Western medicine, they just give us no hope.Oh, your parents have it.You're going to have it.Oh, okay.Then nobody, they're not going to fight.They're not going to fight to change it.So, you know, once I was able to get down my burden load and clean my cells out and heal some trauma and do all these things, my body now doesn't express lupus.My favorite is when people talk about male pattern baldness.Oh, gosh.And, like, there's all these theories out there, like, if your maternal grandfather was bald, then you will be bald, too.And, I mean, when I was younger, I used to kind of believe that because, you know, you don't know anything else, and so you just trust what people have told you.But now I'm like, yeah, I don't really believe that.Like, I mean, yeah, my hair is thinner, definitely thinner than what it was when I was younger.But I attribute that more to diet and lifestyle than I do to my genes, which is just what was inherited.Yeah, absolutely.I think balding is a funny subject, because I really, I think it's just, sometimes, a part of male life, I don't know.It's just, you lose your hair.Because you can cut this out if you want, but in the Bible, it talks about how they, like with, what's the disease, the leprosy.They like check for leprosy, and it's like, oh, if they're balding, or if they're losing hair, you need to check for this, this, and this.And then it's like, if it doesn't show up this way, then they're just balding.It's been a thing that's been for years, and years, and years, and years.It's just something that happens with older people.Just like our hair getting gray.But I definitely think, I think our diet, not eating enough protein, stress, all those things can cause the balding too.Because I know I...Much of it stems from gut health, blood sugar.They kind of go hand in hand, really.But I've heard from many places that it's, whether it's a mental health issue, a physical health issue, it might even tie a little bit into spirituality.If you've got gut issues, it's going to spread and manifest in many different ways.Yeah.We are running out of time, Andrea.So I'm going to ask you one question.If you could change the way, one thing about the way people approach health and wellness, what would it be?Man, one thing.So I would say that if you have symptoms, don't push them under the rug, and don't rely on the typical blood work panel that you get at your doctor's office.Try and find an alternative medicine, whatever functional medicine, an NTP, somebody like us who actually takes symptoms seriously.Because just like we said earlier, just because a symptom is normal, doesn't mean that it's healthy.Yeah.Just because everybody's experiencing PCOS doesn't mean it's normal, right?And so advocating for yourself, trusting that there is something wrong, not stressing over it, but actually searching and finding something, because it's like a check engine light going off.If you have a symptom, your body is telling you there's something wrong.And it could be as simple as a nutrient deficiency, or it could be as complex as having Lyme disease and mold illness.Like, there's so, so different spectrums.So my, what I would tell people is to, to not give up and search for answers when they have symptoms, especially chronic symptoms.One last thing.If people wanted to work with you, how can they find you?Yeah, so that's a little complicated, but I worked for a clinic up in Pennsylvania.It's called Blue Mountain Wellness.And you are more than welcome to check them out, and you can work with me through them, or you can just go to my social media platforms and contact me there, and we can do one-on-one consultations that way as well.My Instagram, I think all my platforms is Andrea Barrick Wellness, all one word.So you can find me on Instagram and YouTube and Spotify.My podcast is Faith Fitness and Chronic Illness.So you can find me on podcast platforms that way.And yeah, reach out.I'll be happy to help you out or at least point you in the right direction.Great.Thanks so much, Andrea.It was great talking to you.If you're feeling like you would like to get started on a low carb or Kyo or carnivore or just a general whole food diet, you might be interested in my small group nutrition program.To learn more, go to beavercreekwellness.com/restart.You can also register there.As of right now, I've got two groups coming up.One is beginning on April 22nd and starts at 6 p.m.Mountain Time.That's a Tuesday evening.It goes for five weeks.The other class that I have scheduled right now is May 24th.That's on a Saturday morning at 930 a.m.Mountain Time.So again, go to beavercreekwellness.com/restart to learn more.If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you leave a review.That really helps me out.And also subscribe to the show wherever you listen to your podcasts.Real Food Mental Health is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only.The information presented on this podcast is not intended to replace any medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.While I am a health care provider, I am not your provider.Always seek the advice of an appropriate health care practitioner with any personal questions you may have regarding a medical condition.Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on this podcast.Reliance on information provided by this podcast is at your own risk.