This week's guest is Cristina Hoyt, MS,CNS, Integrative Clinical Nutritionist, and Body Image Coach. She helps her clients cultivate a positive relationship with food and their body by integrating the principles of functional, neutral nutrition, Health At Every Size™, and weight inclusive, non-diet medical nutrition counseling.

Cristina posed a question early in this interview which is still bouncing around my head. Cristina said we should be asking ourselves, "Is my body perceiving everyday life as something I have to survive?" Those words hit very close as a high achiever who struggles to slow down and acknowledge when my body is telling me it needs recovery time.

We discuss the impact of trusting in the intelligence of your body. The truth is that we can only support our nervous system by slowing down, and we need to heed our body's warning signs to do so. This is extremely difficult for high achieving individuals to process since their tendency to power through an endless to do list despite any setbacks will not be a successful approach when it comes to their health. Society rewards us for being high achieving and high functioning, especially in the US, so turning that switch off when your body is telling you it needs a break to recover becomes a very difficult task.

Cristina shares incredibly insights into what slowing down can do for our health and how we often have to rewire our hustle minded brains to embrace a rest and recovery period.

Find Cristina:
Podcast: Millennial Body Image Project

Website: cristinahoyt.com

IG: @cristinahoytnutrition

Find your host:

https://www.paigelavell.com/

Instagram: @paigelavellofficial

Have questions about the episode, a guest you'd love for me to interview, or a topic you'd like for me to cover? Email me at paige@paigelavell.com!

If you enjoy this podcast, please click Follow to get all new episodes and write a five-star rating & review on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. This truly helps the show to grow and reach more audience members and potential guests. I appreciate you and am honored to have you as a listener!

Alexa Prass is a Registered Dietitian who combines her personal experience with celiac disease with her education to support people with celiac disease and other medically necessary gluten-free diets. Alexa believes that living a gluten-free life does not have to hold you back and with the right knowledge and support you too can live your best gluten-free life.

She sheds light on what celiac disease is since there is often not much shared online beyond the name of the condition itself and an understanding that it impacts the gastrointestinal system. There are, in fact, over 300 documented symptoms related to celiac disease including migraines and fertility issues. She also shared that if someone is your family has celiac, you are more likely to have the condition yourself. This was the case with Alexa whose father was diagnosed with celiac long before she began showing symptoms herself.

Alexa notes that celiac disease, like every autoimmune condition, is not something that can be self-diagnosed. Removing gluten on your own can actually prevent a proper diagnosis if you have celiac. Patients need gluten in their diet for the intestinal endoscopy and biopsy results to properly confirm the presence of celiac disease. This puts patients in a rather difficult position.

For those who are not allergic to gluten but are trying to reduce or eliminate gluten from their diet for other reasons (e.g. they have Hashimoto's and are curious if removing gluten helps alleviate certain symptoms), Alexa's recommendation is to inform your friends and family why you are removing or reducing gluten to better educate your support system. She also stresses that everything is a result of a dietary and lifestyle pattern as opposed to a one time decision. Eating (or not eating) one type of food on a particular day will not make or break your current diet. For example, not eating fruits and vegetables one day is not going to derail your health. It's all about the big picture.

Alexa also notes that is it difficult for many patients to obtain a referral to a dietician, and those who are able to receive a referral often end up seeing practitioners who do not specialize in celiac disease or other autoimmune conditions. She started her business, in part, in an effort to address this issue.

Find Alexa:

Website: Gluten Freedom Nutrition

IG: @glutenfreedomnutrition @alexaprassrdn

Find your host:

https://www.paigelavell.com/

Instagram: @paigelavellofficial

Have questions about the episode, a guest you'd love for me to interview, or a topic you'd like for me to cover? Email me at paige@paigelavell.com!

If you enjoy this podcast, please click Follow to get all new episodes and write a five-star rating & review on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. This truly helps the show to grow and reach more audience members and potential guests. I appreciate you and am honored to have you as a listener!

Dana Monsees is a Dietitian-Nutritionist and Body Image Coach specializing in nutrition therapy for gut health, hormonal imbalances, and burnout from a non-restrictive approach. She is also the first returning guest of the Invisibly Unwell podcast!

In this episode Dana debunks many health and fitness trends circulating around the social media jungle and turns several of my questions on their head in the process - in a truly refreshing way! She dives into inflammation and explains why it's not inherently a bad thing despite the information we are bombarded with online. She talks about the role of cortisol which is a key part of the body's stress response and stresses that movement doesn't mean you have to run five miles or day or do 5+ HIIT workouts per week.

If anyone tells you this (insert specific diet workout, or wellness practice) is the one and only way, question anything this individual is touting. The healthier choice is to find and experiment with different things to apply to your unique life and health situation. Also, what works for us in this season of life may not work well for us in another season. This is something I've had to personally learn during pregnancy and which I am sure will continue to evolve as I enter motherhood.

Find Dana:

Website: Real Food with Dana

Podcast: Millennial Body Image Project

Instagram: @danamonsees_cns @wholeheartedeatingpod

Find your host:

https://www.paigelavell.com/

Instagram: @paigelavellofficial

Have questions about the episode, a guest you'd love for me to interview, or a topic you'd like for me to cover? Email me at paige@paigelavell.com!

If you enjoy this podcast, please click Follow to get all new episodes and write a five-star rating & review on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. This truly helps the show to grow and reach more audience members and potential guests. I appreciate you and am honored to have you as a listener!