Written by Christopher Kelly
Dec. 20, 2014
[0:00:00]
Julie: Hello and welcome to the Paleo Baby podcast. Today I'm joined by Jill Cruz.
Jill has an MS in Human Nutrition and is a Certified Nutrition Specialist. She is the President and Founder of Body Wise Food Smart and like me, she is passionate about being a food detective in people's lives. And she's here to talk to us a lot about today what she does to guide people to better health and I'm really excited to have her on the show.
Jill, welcome and thanks for joining us.
Jill: Thank you. I'm happy to be joining you.
Julie: So let's talk a little bit about how you got here because I think that people are always curious how we find our ways to health. I always think it's really fascinating that some of the best healers and guides in this industry and in this community are people that have struggled themselves.
So how did you kind of get from Point A to Point B where we are today?
Jill: Well, I had always thought I was a pretty healthy eater. My parents were I guess you could say hippies. We had the tofu and the brown rice and the veggies and all that. So by the time I was pregnant in my early 30s, I thought I'll eat all the whole grains and organic and I thought I was doing really well.
Well, fast forward a couple of years after I've had two children. I'm tired all the time and just not feeling good, not sleeping well at night, stressed out. I went to the doctor and I got diagnosed with Hashimoto's which is an autoimmune condition of the thyroid. And that was a big time wake-up call because, like I said, I always thought "Oh, I'm healthy. Everything's fine." So that really started me on my journey to actually investigating what it meant to eat healthy because before that I just sort of assumed you eat whole grains, you eat organic and that's enough.
And then I discovered the Weston Price Foundation which was fascinating and I made a lot of changes and a lot of improvements in my health from that. And from there I had such a passion for it, I went to graduate school for Nutrition and one thing led to another and here I am. But it's definitely been a journey and I think that's important for everybody that we all have our own path. It's usually not a linear path, it has ups and downs and yeah, that wake-up call about my own health started a much deeper passion for health, nutrition, lifestyle.
Julie: And do you still follow Weston Price principles pretty closely?
Jill: Not as much as I used to when I first discovered it. And I think this is pretty common when you discover something new and exciting, you go full on and then eventually tweak things and find things that work for you. I definitely do eat bone broth regularly, I consume raw dairy, I definitely buy all my food local as much as I can, fresh pastured eggs. And so a lot of those principles I do incorporate into my diet, yes.
But not to a point where "If it's now raw, I'm not going to eat it." I'm not 100% strict with it, let's put it that way.
Julie: Yeah. I know you've done the Functional Diagnostic Nutrition which my husband has also have done and you talked a little bit about the metabolic typing diet. Can you tell us a little bit about what that is and how it works?
Jill: Yeah. I'm glad you brought that up because that is one thing that I've discovered pretty early on in my journey training in nutrition and it's still, to this day, probably the most fundamental concept that I do follow or adhere to.
That is, simply in a nutshell, that if you go out there in the world online looking for healthy diets, you're going to find a million and one different perspectives on it. The reason why is that because we are not all the same. There are certain principles that are the same like really processed foods and sugar are not right but in terms of the macronutrients, the proteins, the fat, the carbohydrates, each of us has a unique need and that need can even change seasonally, cyclically, even throughout the day. So to say that "Everybody should eat a vegetarian diet or everybody should eat a Paleo diet", I do not subscribe to that. I think that we have to find our own path.
That's really is how I've taken the metabolic typing and adjusted it when I work with clients. We have a conversation about what their likes and dislikes are, if they eat let's say oatmeal for breakfast are they tired and hungry or do they feel great? So we really have to just look at the macronutrients first and then develop a more individualized-type diet for each person.
[0:05:15]
Julie: I think I have a similar approach when I work with people and that's there's some really great templates out there that I think can get people really feeling better quickly. But yeah, if it's not customized to their life then it's probably not going to be sustainable and that's usually the goal. So it's seeking those key fundamentals and making them applicable to them.
Jill: Yes. I try to educate a lot of people on paying attention to their body because without that and just blindly following, let's say, a raw vegan diet without paying attention or on the flip side, a ketogenic diet -- those are two extremes really.
But there are certain factors that I always ask people to pay attention to. One is hunger, another is cravings, there's mental clarity, mood, and energy. Those are the five big factors that I always ask people, "Pay attention to that. How do you feel after you eat that meal? Do you feel sluggish or are you energized by them?" And that can help people narrow down what are the right types of meals for them.
Julie: How long do you think it usually takes people to kind of get into? Because I find that it's just something that is really difficult to teach is that body awareness is that plain awareness of connecting your food to how you feel. It's funny, like I watch my daughter and I'm happy that we've discovered everything that we've discovered about diet and lifestyle before she was born. I kind of envy her ability now to grow up being aware of her food and how it makes her feel because I work with people all the time that are over 30, never really stopped to take a second to pay attention.
How long do you think it takes to teach?
Jill: I mean I can relate that concept to somebody in a few minutes. For them to actually do it, it really just depends on the person. That's something a person could pick up right away. But the idea of observing the body is pretty simple. In terms of really understanding what your own unique needs are, that is an ongoing process that goes on for life.
But I totally get what you're saying. Since I've become aware of it, I've always done that with my children where I just want to put the most nutritious food on the table and let them choose. It was funny because my older daughter is more of a vegetable lover type person and my younger daughter was more of a meat eater. So I put the food on the table, you have the salads, some steamed vegetables, you have some meat, fish and my one daughter goes for the meat immediately and the other one goes straight for the greens. So I'm not even going to get involved. As long as it's nutritious, you can eat whatever you want and whatever portions you want.
I think that adults, if we could just lose a lot of our preconceptions, we could pick that up pretty quickly but it is hard. And then there are food sensitivities.
Julie: Yes. And you work with a lot of people with chronic issues and with autoimmune conditions, right?
Jill: Yes.
Julie: That's another thing. How do you set someone up for success when they kind of are going to have to do the trial-and-error and the figuring out? Because I find a lot of people are still kind of in denial about what could be causing their sensitivities and they're not really willing to cut some of those things out that maybe I know they should probably cut out to begin with.
What's the process for that?
Jill: Being that I'm supposedly the expert although I believe that everybody should be their own expert in their own body, but I have a certain amount of experience and knowledge and that is my role is the guide. I will speak to people, listen to people really and together, we're going to devise a plan that's realistic because some people, "Hey, I'm not going to stop eating gluten." We have to work with what we have and then together we devise a plan that based on my experiencing typically people who have these tendencies tend to do better with these types of diets.
[0:10:00]
So it is a conversation. And again, there are certain characteristics and again this goes back to the metabolic typing, certain people who tend to have a higher need for protein and fat will be the same people who tend to over-eat carbs and crave sugar and maybe be overweight. Perhaps they would love red meat -- that is a very common one -- and love butter and that kind of thing. So when I'm listening to people, I do tend to put them into a broad category and we start there. Because you have to start somewhere and from there you just tweak.
And in terms of the food sensitivities, it really depends on how desperate a person. A lot of the people that I work with, they come in and they say, "Look, I will do whatever you tell me because I feel really awful."
Julie: No, that's true.
Jill: So then it's a little bit easier in one sense to say "First let's get out the typical offenders which would be wheat and dairy and some other ones, but it really depends on the person.
Julie: Definitely.
You're really interested in genetic testing and things like that, are you finding that having those tools is useful in terms of getting someone to take action in their life if you've got this data or this information. What kinds of fact are you seeing that have when you sit down to work with someone?
Jill: That's a good question. I think the genetic data, as a practitioner, it's very valuable for me. I love it! For the patient, I think some people get a little nervous because here we are, we're laying it out. Okay, this is probably you have a genetic propensity for an increased risk for autoimmune let's say or whatever it is.
Some people, it gets them a little nervous but I say it probably is a positive motivator, I think. I make it very clear to people, look, the reason why we're here is not to just tell you "Oh, this is your genetic propensity." The reason why we're here is to look at that and then do something about it because epigenetics is really where we're working and that is the expression of the gene relies on the input from the environment. So if you eat a certain way, your genes are going to express one way; if you eat healthier, they're going to express it a different way.
So in a way it's exciting because you say "I have this tendency but this is what I can do about it." So it's usually quite a positive fun thing to do with people.
Julie: Where does the methylation is kind of the topic of the hour with -- I don't know with people that we work with, but just in general in the community, I think people are learning so much about the importance of methylation. And now that we know that there are specific parts of being with people's genetic material that they can easily find, like the 23andme and things like that.
Would you just tell us a little bit what methylation is, why it's important and kind of how you're working with specific genetic information with clients.
Jill: Methylation is really just a chemical process. Methyl groups are, again, it's just a molecule that you can take in with food but the body has to package it in a certain way. You take it in with food and supplements at this point. A lot of people supplement. But the body has to package it in a certain way and that's basically attaching it, there's a molecule created called SAM, S-Adenosyl methionine.
What SAM does is it goes around the body and it drops off these little methyl groups to all these different reactions in the body. And how does that relate to us not wanting to look at the biochemistry but on how we feel, methylation is predominantly used up in the process of creating cell membranes and in building muscle. So 80% of methylation is occupied with those two categories and or course that is huge! Your cell membranes, those are the lipid by-layer that surrounds the cells and it's also outside in the mitochondria. So it's huge. Energy production, protection of your DNA, detoxification -- everything really occurs there. So that's important. And then the muscles, of course, that obviously occupies a lot of area in the body as well.
[0:15:01]
But usually the reason why people are concerned about methylation and coming to us for it is because of hormone or neurotransmitter imbalances. Even though most of the methylation is not going toward neurotransmitter and hormone, it's enough that is things are skewed, if you're not methylating properly, you can feel really awful. It can really affect typically mood -- depression, anxiety, people feeling very hyper and not being able to calm down, sleep issues. So this is an area where people really, this is the top-of-the-mind problem and they don't care about their cell membranes necessarily that they're aware of.
The other thing is it's very important for immune function and detoxification. So as you can see, methylation is a reaction that's happening in your body in very important aspects. And then we have the DNA synthesis. So it's huge. And we take the 23andme gives us the basic genetic information about an individual if they have little, what we call, SNPs which are Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms. Those are basically little, I like to call them mistakes but we use the term variants. Little mistakes or variants in the gene itself. Sometimes these SNPs won't affect function at all and sometimes they will and that's where it gets tricky.
We use the 23andme then we look at what's going on with that person. I could look at their 23andme and say, "Oh, my gosh! This person is going to have methylation issues." And they're saying, "Oh, no. I feel fine, I sleep well." So we have to look at the 23andme in conjunction with the clinical symptoms or what's going on with the person and on top of that, with the functional medicine. We use certain types of testing. We test cysteine. We even would test B12 in the blood, we do organic acid testing. And we use all three of that type of data to figure out what we're going to do.
Julie: That was a perfect answer. I'm just wondering so if I come to you and I present with this methylation problem and I'm also presenting symptoms. What's the approach? Is that something that if you've got this genetic predisposition plus you've gotten to a point where your epigenetics have led you to express this, what's your prognosis? What are you doing to correct that?
Jill: Well, I think in many, many cases, the prognosis is really good as long as the person is compliant. They're actually going to do what we've set out to do.
Essentially, we always go back to epigenetics. It's sort of like basic functional medicine. We look at gut function, just like if we didn't have the 23andme, we'd still be looking at that. So a lot of it goes back to the basics, how is gastrointestinal function going? And that's sort of where we start. We also want to look at the cell membrane health and that's another whole conversation. And we are able to do that. We are able to look at the cell membrane health and just look at basic function and then look, what is this person eating, and then go from there.
So a lot of it is basic stuff that we're doing. You're going to have to stop eating processed foods and start eating plenty of vegetables and good quality meat if you're not a vegetarian -- a lot of that basic stuff. And then the supplementation is very individualized and that really is based on the person's symptoms and the SNPs that they have. And I have no one set protocol but usually we're targeting the B vitamins and magnesium because it's a co-factor in so many of those pathways.
Julie: And folate too, right?
Jill: Yes, which is a B vitamin essentially. So Methylfolate and B12 and B6 are the big ones, I would say. But then yet B1, B2, B3 also play a major role. The unfortunate thing is that there's no one multivitamin that I could give people for that. It ends up that they're taking different types for each of those.
Julie: It's funny. I think the genetic testing can sometimes create more questions than answers but in this case, I think it's one of the more actionable things that you can do especially if someone's presenting with the symptoms of having methylation issues.
[0:19:55]
But in terms of the B vitamins, you'll do an organic acids test on someone and you'll find that they've got deficiencies in several B vitamins and they'll look at you like, "Oh, that's it? Just B vitamins?" You don't understand how crucially and vitally these things are to every single function of your body. So more like that, "Oh, I take them. I take a multi, there's B vitamins in that." I'm like "You don't understand."
Julie: Yes. And a lot of times it's in the dosing. It depends on the multi. Let's say it's B1, it may have 3 milligrams of B1 and I might be saying "No, you need 100 milligrams."
Julie: That's not just going to cut it.
Jill: Right.
Julie: What about the use of diet specifically? I'm trying to segue here to ketosis because I'm quite interested in ketogenic diets. My husband and I have done versions of ketogenic diet for over a year now. I'm curious what your take on this and your experience working with men and women and how you're using a ketogenic diet in your practice.
Jill: Well, first I have to say personally, I'm a huge fan. I have two dietary interventions that I think are the most powerful and one is the ketogenic diet. I've just seen it move things incredibly with people.
It's not for everybody. Like I said, not everybody has the same needs. I had a woman who she really wanted to do it and she did it and she hated it and she didn't lose any weight. And I said, you got to go back to the more vegetarian diet you were eating and that's a classic example of someone what I call kind of like a veggie burner as opposed to a fat and protein burner. So if you're someone who's always loved fatty foods and meat and stuff, you're probably going to love the ketogenic diet and do great on it.
And there are, as you said, different variations. I think we can start off really very, very low-carb, like 20 grams, or with cancer patients, sometimes we do 12 grams of carbs a day and making sure they're getting plenty of fat because that's the thing as you know. You're not going to shift into ketosis if you're not getting enough fat and that's challenging for people. But I've seen it definitely with cancer patients. I see it help people. Weight loss -- huge. I mean people love it for weight loss. And also sometimes with gut problems, people feel much better when they take out all the grains and the sugar. They feel fabulous. The belly feels flat, it gets flat.
Julie: One of the things we find that we've just kind of been frustrated, I don't feel like we're getting bogged down in any kind of dogma. I mean we practice the ketogenic diet but the goal is not to get everyone converted obviously. We have to figure out what's best for everyone. One thing that I find kind of frustrated in the conversation about ketogenic diets is that there's been a handful of studies whether or not they're super credible or whether or not you agree with them or the science behind them, but little snippets of dogma kind of been taken from those and then turned into just how people describe a ketogenic diet. And so I find a lot when I'm doing a lot of myth-busting about what a ketogenic diet actually is at its core.
Do you find that as well? Because I feel like that's one of the things I feel like I'm becoming more of a ketogenic proponent just because I feel like I have to defend it a little bit because it does have such great potential that I don't want to see it just kind of tossed to the side because it's been labeled inappropriately.
Jill: Yeah. No, absolutely. The thing is people will often say "Well, is that Atkins diet" and I say "Well, yes and no."
Julie: Exactly.
Jill: I think Dr. Atkins himself actually understood the ketogenic diet very well but… in the book I think people read that book and they sort of misinterpreted a lot of stuff.
But one thing that I always say to sort of clarify in people's minds about the ketogenic diet is that it's definitely not a high-protein diet. It is a high-fat diet and I like to call it an oil-and-veggie diet.
Julie: Yeah! Thank you!
Jill: Just to shift people away from the idea that "Oh, I'm going to eat red meat every day." No, you could actually do a ketogenic diet and be vegetarian although I think it would not be easy but it's doable.
And the other thing that I'm sure you really emphasize to people is it's not just about sitting down and eating a stick of butter. You want to make sure that you're getting your essential fatty acids correct and getting plenty of the polyunsaturated fatty acids which are totally demonized by the way and even in the Weston Price world.
[0:25:17]
Earlier I talked about the lipid, the cell membranes and this comes down to that really. We have to make sure we're getting our essential fatty acids which a lot of people don't understand what that means. They think it's usually EPA and DHA from the fish oil but our true essential acids are alpha linoleic acid and linoleic acid and that's it. There are only two of them.
So when people do the ketogenic diet, I say you have to make sure that you're get high-quality flaxseed and high-quality usually sunflower seed oil to cover that.
Julie: Yeah, I think there's so much to that to kind of just breaking it down into its core pieces. I tell people all the time, I don't feel like I just want to eat meat and just fat and that's good because you actually need to eat a lot of vegetables and the great thing about vegetables is they're wonderful vehicles for fat.
Jill: Right, that is true.
I have a sheet I've made for people and it has a list of all different types of food that you would eat on a ketogenic or low-carb diet and I list the net carb content. The first group there's about 12 different vegetables there that are wonderful that are super low in carbs. Endives for example, great. They basically have zero net carbs so you could eat a cup of endive and you haven't evens started on your carb quota for a day.
So it is possible to do a lot of vegetables and just get in all those essential fatty acids and olive oil and coconut oil, and all these other fats that are out there and you just take in just the right amount of meat or eggs. It's actually a very enjoyable diet, I think.
Julie: I concur. I haven't had any problems with that.
Jill: The other thing too, I just wanted to mention about ketogenic, I mean there's a ton of stuff I could say but the one thing that I always like to caution people about besides making sure they got enough electrolytes with sea salt and bone broth.
For some people, constipation becomes an issue which is a little perplexing because oil by its nature promotes the gallbladder to be very active, promotes bowel movements. But some people, if they're not doing it quite right, they will get constipated. So I always just caution people, if you are becoming more constipated, maybe you need more oil, you're eating too much meat or maybe you do need a little bit more fiber and chia seeds and flax seeds are fabulous because they basically have zero net carbs. Two tablespoons of chia seeds have seven grams of fiber.
Julie: That's awesome.
Jill: So I always encourage people to go in that direction if they do have constipation.
Julie: That's a good advice.
You work with a lot of people that have chronic issues and things like that but you also have worked with and work with pregnant women in the past or you enjoy working with pregnant women. One of my big things that I am trying to talk about more and more is the idea… functional medicine is great because if you come at it at the right time, we're kind of at this place where it's about to become a little bit more where people are hopefully taking the reins of their health instead of waiting until they get to the place of chronic disease. They're doing a little bit more work upfront to figure out their baseline and where they are and what's going on with them and things like 23andme is really helpful for that. I think it's showing that people are taking a general stake in their health. And functional medicine is great, I think, because it can provide people with that baseline.
And so one of the things that I'm trying to talk about more and more is this idea of preconception nutrition and preconception health especially when you take another step back and you look at epigenetics and we're looking at things now that we're learning that it actually is probably your health and your nutrition if you're pregnant is affecting not your children specifically but your grandchildren. It's more of like a three-generation problem that we've got here.
And so I think the idea of preconception nutrition and health is really important. You've worked with lots of people both with chronic disease and pregnant people in the past, where do you think we should be going in that direction? How do you think people should be approaching their health before they get pregnant or while they're pregnant in order to ensure not only a health and safe pregnancy but to kind of ensure that they're doing everything they can to prepare for the future literally?
[0:30:22]
Jill: Yeah! Well, so many things come to mind but since we were talking about it and actually even if we hadn't talked about it, what would have come to mind is the whole issue of methylation because the mother's folate status and really methylation status is going to have a huge effect. I mean this is where DNA -- it's the first set when the fetus is growing so we want to make sure that that DNA has its best chance from the get go.
Anybody who comes to me who's trying to get pregnant or wants to get healthy before pregnancy, I always, okay, let's get methylation down. And that's where yes, you could do the 23andme or you could just test B12 and folate in the blood which aren't great tests. But if you have access to the functional testing, you could do an organic acid. There are two urinary organic acid test that are pretty good indicators of B12 and folate status.
So I would recommend, hey, if you want to go full on with this, do the organic acid test, make sure your B12 and your folate status is okay. Even if it is, we want to pay attention to it. It's so easy, like you said, it really is quite easy to balance methylation if you're healthy already. Eat a couple cups of raw leafy greens every day and you're going to get in lots of folate in the right form and then just make sure you're taking B12 in the right form which is Methylcobalamin or methyl B12 or adenosyl B12 but you don't want to get the cyano B12 and you definitely want to avoid folic acid like the plague.
Julie: But that's really hard to do if you're trying to just be a normal pregnant woman and take some prenatal vitamins.
Jill: That's right, that was what I was going to say. If you look at prenatal vitamins, they all have folic acid in it. Folic acid has decreased the incidence of neural tube defects historically since it's been mandated that it's in in these whole grains and in the supplements. However, it's also been linked to an increased risk for colon cancer and possibly other types of cancer.
So let's put that out and not use it because we don't really know what it's doing and let's use the folate, the Methylfolate form. We know it's the natural form and it's still folate. It's actually the folate we need.
So just looking at methylation, making sure that you're taking in sufficient B-vitamins; usually a good multi or a good prenatal will cover that for a healthy person. And then the leafy greens are great. So there's the methylation, there's detoxification. I am a huge fan -- if I could do it all again, I would go through a couple of cleanses before I get pregnant. I'm not having any more babies so I'm not doing that but I'm a huge fan of doing cleanses. Of course it depends on the person. There are different ways to cleanse.
You could cleanse with the ketogenic diet if you're doing it correctly. You could cleanse with a diet rich in vegetable juice and bone broth and just really slimming down the proteins. There are different ways to detox. Taking supplements for liver support. I'm a huge fan of coffee enemas. There are all kinds of things. There's lymph drainage, there is brushing your skin, you could talk about detox forever but I do think that that's a great thing for women to do. And then not only women, men too because their sperm is involved in this whole thing.
Julie: That's true.
Jill: Let's get the men on board too. And just in general, paying attention to what you eat. Maybe not even paying so much attention to what you don't eat as to what you are eating so making sure you're getting at least 6 to 9 or even 12 servings of vegetables a day, not eating a lot of processed foods or a lot of sugar but making sure that protein intake is adequate because that is very important and taking a good multi.
It's not rocket science to prepare really. And then there are all these wonderful traditional nutrient-dense food such as liver, you have fish eggs, eggs in general -- I mean, it's an egg. The egg is the basis of conception, right?
[0:35:10]
Julie: Yeah. Well, sometimes people say "Yeah, but that's all well and good but surprise! I'm pregnant. Now my hands are tied." So how do I approach it from a perspective because not everybody -- it's becoming more and more common that I find people are coming and saying "I want to get pregnant." As women have babies later I think they're taking a little bit more direct approach about getting pregnant so they have some time before they get pregnant to make their pregnancy what they want it to be.
But what do you say to a woman that is pregnant and there are not as many interventions as you can make safely when someone is already pregnant? What's the best approach do you think so that methylation issue and they hadn't detoxed and things like that, what's the best approach that you can take during pregnancy?
Jill: Essentially, the approach preconception, during pregnancy and postpartum, the fundamental is the same in terms of the food. Definitely you don't want to do detox when you're pregnant -- absolutely not! -- and you don't try to lose weight. Besides that the B vitamins are very safe, even just taking a good multi. If you do have real methylation issues going on, you probably aren't going to get pregnant very easily to begin with. And if you do, then I would definitely recommend seeing a practitioner that's qualified in this type of thing because it does get very individualized.
But, yeah! It's so simple, just eat well. Eat well and then stress is very problematic. It doesn't matter if you're 3 years old or 30 years old and trying to get pregnant, whatever, I cannot emphasize enough the role of stress in breaking down health. So take it easy. I'm a huge fan of not only physical cleansing which you cannot do when you're pregnant, you can do mental cleansing when you're pregnant. Really focusing on your feelings why you're feeling a certain way and I do a daily mental cleanse. Every single day I look at my feelings, I say, "Wow! I was really upset about that thing" or whatever it was. What was it that bothered me about that? And exploring my feelings and then just saying, it's okay. It's okay that I was angry, it's okay that I yelled at my daughter. It's done. I don't want to do it again. I call that a mental cleanse, just allowing your feelings to be their feelings because every part of us, whether it's anger or happiness, or love or hate, that's all part of us as human beings and if we start to deny those feelings, that's what's stressful.
I'm sorry, I'm getting off on a tangent here.
Julie: No, this is really important, we haven't covered stress yet. But yeah, that's definitely top of the list.
Jill: It's huge, it's more important than anything else. As a nutritionist, I always say this to people, I'm going to tell you all these stuff about food but before that, the stress, sleep, worrying, all these things, we have to pay attention to those. And when we're pregnant, the hormones are raging and so it's important to take care of yourself and relax and get good sleep and all that.
But again, also just the basics with the food. If someone is stressing out because they drank some alcohol before they knew they were pregnant or early in the pregnancy they had to have corn chips every day. It's okay. Just let it go. If you worry about that, the worrying is worse than what you did.
Julie: Yeah, I see that all the time. If you're going to stress yourself out for a year about a piece of cake that you're going to eat, just eat the piece of cake and forget about it because it's not worth the stress. That's not worth it. very interesting.
Well, that's great. I think that's all really.
Jill: Like you said before, vegetables, even if you do have that cake… early pregnancy especially people have a lot of different cravings. I craved Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, I'll admit it, and I ate that. I never have eaten that when I was a child or anything but for some reason, I wanted it. But at the same time, I was also eating a lot of vegetables and making sure I had enough protein.
[0:40:08]
So like I said, focus more on what you are, getting in what you need to get in and not sweating if you do have stuff that's not ideal. I'll leave it at that.
Julie: Less than ideal choices. I don't even call them choices though in those early days of pregnancy. It's not like you have much control over yourself.
Jill: And one thing also that I wish I had known about when I was pregnant because I had a lot of nausea the first couple of months is B6. There are a lot of trials that have been done and B6 has been shown to decrease nausea. You need to take a good amount of it, 50 milligrams, even 100 milligrams. The upper limit is 100 milligrams. Again, B vitamins tend to be very safe even in larger amounts, and the ginger. A thousand milligrams of ginger, you can take it in capsule. These things can reduce nausea and help with that stuff so that you can eat better.
Julie: That's awesome, that's really good information. I wish I had known that as well. That's fascinating.
Jill: Again, it's not going to necessarily going to work for everybody but there are enough clinical trials randomized... I mean real trials going in here, not folklore that have shown that this helps women.
Julie: It's one of those things, it's such a low-hanging fruit. Why not try it? It's certainly not going to hurt, that's for sure. Awesome.
Well, it has been great talking to you today. I've learned a lot and I'm sure the listeners are going to enjoy especially that conversation about methylation that's very important at the moment.
Where can people learn more about you, get in touch with you, what are you working on right now?
Jill: I have two websites, actually. One is Body Wise Food Smart, so it's just www.bodywisefoodsmart.com. I work with two doctors here in Rockland County, New York which is just outside of New York City. And that side is geared for patients who are usually dealing with chronic illness or they want to work on the preconception, pregnancy, that kind of thing.
And then I have another website for the weight loss. I've been doing the ketogenic diet but I am branching out because I've seen that not everybody loses weight on the ketogenic diet amazingly. And that's called the switchforlife.com. So I have the Switch for Life for weight loss and Body Wise Food Smart for just general health stuff. And I am in the process of creating a manual for weight loss for ketogenic diet and also more for the veggie burners as I call them, people who are not interested in eating large amounts of fat.
And that's what I do. I work with people over the phone and I work in two separate functional medicine offices here in Rockland County which is amazing.
Julie: That's great! Well, thank you for doing what you do. I think it's awesome to have other people doing this because I think we need to get more and more people involved in spreading the good word. So thank you for doing what you do and thanks for being with us today. We'll have to have you back on again to talk about more because I think we could probably talk [0:43:37] [Indiscernible] the day about all the things that we do.
Jill: Yes, yes, I love it. And thank you so much for having me, it was a blast. Thank you for what you do too.
Julie: It's going to become one of those sitcoms, "No, thank you!" Awesome! Well, thanks so much, Jill, and take care.
Jill: Okay, you too. Bye-bye.
[0:43:57] End of Audio
© 2013-2024 nourishbalancethrive