LIVE WELL PODCAST | EPISODE 14 - Endometriosis as a social justice issue with Angie Alt

It’s an unfortunate reality that women’s pain is routinely ignored or undervalued in the medical system [1]. Women in pain are much more likely than men to receive prescriptions for sedatives, rather than pain medication for their complaints which can affect access to proper treatment [2]. This bias is one difficulty in the diagnosis and treatment of the condition endometriosis.

Endometriosis is a disease in which tissue similar to endometrium, the tissue lining the inside of the uterus, is found outside the uterus. This tissue can grow outside of uterus on other organs, commonly the ovaries, uterus, bowel and pelvic sidewall, seriously injuring or even destroying these other organs. In these locations the tissue responds to cyclic hormonal changes, just like the tissue inside the uterus, which causes inflammation, bleeding, and A LOT of pain. 1/10 women experience endometriosis so it’s actually far more common than we think! [3]

I interviewed Angie Alt of Autoimmune Wellness to get her take on why endometriosis has become a social justice issue and what we can do about it. Angie herself manages three autoimmune diseases, Lichen Sclerosis, Endometriosis, and Celiac disease and has used diet and lifestyle shifts to help her live a more vibrant life. Listen to the episode to learn about Angie’s experience with endometriosis, learn about treatment options, and explore important ways to manage this underrepresented condition. Make sure to share this blog post and interview with all of your girlfriends. There is fantastic info in here that can help women get empowered and informed!

LISTEN BELOW (AND DON'T FORGET TO SUBSCRIBE SO YOU'LL NEVER MISS OUT!)

Click here to listen in iTunes

Click here to listen in Stitcher

Or if you’d like to play the episode right now in your browser, use the player below:

Show Notes:

• 0:00 Intro

• 0:40 Introducing Angie Alt

• 3:57 What is endometriosis?

• 5:20 Why don’t we hear about endometriosis more despite it’s prevalence?

  • Endometriosis is a “women’s issue”

  • “Women’s pain is routinely undervalued and ignored in the medical system” - Angie

• 9:00 Angie’s experience with Endometriosis

• 10:40 The phenomenon of women trying to self-manage the pain due to lack of proper treatment

• 12:18 Is endometriosis an autoimmune disease?

• 13:50 What are the available treatments for Endometriosis?

  • Laprascopic surgery

  • Find an endometriosis specialist

  • Hormones

  • Pelvic floor physical therapy

  • Liver support

• 22:10 “The hormonal treatments for endometriosis amount to experimenting on women” - Angie

• 24:10 The role of our liver in hormone production and detoxification

  • Castor oil packs

  • Dandelion tea

  • Supplements

  • Beets, leafy greens and foods that support the liver

• 25:10 How to deal with the severe pain?

  • Don’t let the pain get ahead of you

  • Ok to use pain medications

  • Anti-inflammatory diet

  • Meditation

  • Heat pads

  • Resting

  • CBD Oil

• 31:44 Stages to endometriosis 1-4

  • The stages do not reflect how much pain the person might be in

• 33:00 Finding a specialist for endometriosis

  • Nancy’s Nook as a great resource

• 36:00 Angie’s advice for women going through their healing journey with endometriosis

• 37:10 Outro

---

If you loved this episode, I'd be honored for you to give me a rating on iTunes. This helps me to get content out to others who are interested in getting control of their health through diet, lifestyle shifts and personal empowerment.

---

P.S. I always offer free 30-minute discovery sessions to get clear on your major health concerns and what’s standing in your way. Contact me to set up a consultation and we can create a plan of action specifically for you.

In Health, 

Christina Tidwell, MN, RN, CHC

LIVE WELL PODCAST | EPISODE 9 - Exercise and Autoimmune Disease

In episode 9 of the Live Well Podcast, we'll explore what to consider when it comes to exercise and autoimmune disease.

LISTEN BELOW (AND DON'T FORGET TO SUBSCRIBE SO YOU'LL NEVER MISS OUT!)

Click here to listen in iTunes

Click here to listen in Stitcher

Or if you’d like to play the episode right now in your browser, use the player below:

Show Notes:

• 0:00 Intro

• 0:41 Exercise and Autoimmune disease

• 0:50 My personal experience with exercise after diagnosis with autoimmune disease

• 3:00 Bell shaped curve of exercise

  • Under exercising

  • Over exercising

• 7:00 How to evaluate what’s right for you

• 10:57 Outro

If you loved this episode, I'd be honored for you to give me a rating on iTunes. This helps me to get content out to others who are interested in getting control of their health through diet, lifestyle shifts and personal empowerment.

---

P.S. I always offer free 30-minute discovery sessions to get clear on your major health concerns and what’s standing in your way. Contact me to set up a consultation and we can create a plan of action specifically for you.

In Health, 

Christina Tidwell, MN, RN, CHC

LIVE WELL PODCAST | EPISODE 11 - Laura’s Healing Story (Undiagnosed Autoimmune Disease)

In episode 11 of the Live Well Podcast, we learn about Laura Morrow's autoimmune healing story.

Laura Morrow began suffering from an autoimmune disease in 2017. On her healing journey, she began following the Autoimmune Protocol diet and successfully put her symptoms behind her. Through this experience, she identified that there was a distinct need for a business that provided women with the products and support to succeed in sticking with AIP. She launched Simply AIP with the goal of making the Autoimmune Protocol as simple as possible for women so they can focus on healing. [Head to Simply AIP and get $5 off using the code LIVEWELL5OFF!]

Tune in to learn how Laura went from “sleepwalking through life” to becoming the owner of a thriving business helping women to eat healthy and feel their best.

LISTEN BELOW (AND DON'T FORGET TO SUBSCRIBE SO YOU'LL NEVER MISS OUT!)

Click here to listen in iTunes

Click here to listen in Stitcher

Or if you’d like to play the episode right now in your browser, use the player below:

Show Notes:

If you loved this episode, I'd be honored for you to give me a rating on iTunes. This helps me to get content out to others who are interested in getting control of their health through diet, lifestyle shifts and personal empowerment.

---

P.S. In the quest for health there is so much conflicting information out there about diet and lifestyle (as I'm sure you know) and it can get so overwhelming! I’ve designed my Live Well coaching program to cut through all of this overwhelm.   I always offer free 30-minute discovery sessions to help you get clear on your major health concerns and what’s standing in your way.so contact me to set up your free consultation and we can create a plan of action specifically for you.

In Health, 

Christina Tidwell, MN, RN, CHC

The Biggest mistakes people make when starting a healing diet (and how to avoid them)

The dark side of healing diets. I realize that this sounds pretty dramatic, but in this realm of using food to improve your well-being, a lot of things can come up. 

Healing diets such as the Autoimmune Protocol, SCD, Whole 30, Wahls Protocol etc. are wonderful tools to help your body realign. As I’ve coached hundreds of people on how to find the diet that works best for them and how to incorporate healthy whole foods into their lives, I’ve seen some common mistakes that people often make when embarking on any healing diet, and I want to share these with you so that you have all the tools you need to succeed!

So you’ve done a healing diet for 30 days, you feel amazing, have reduced inflammation and bloating, feel more clear and energized, are sleeping better and feeling happier. Wonderful! You’ve done it! This was the goal!

Then, once you begin to feel better and get away from this restricted way of eating and life starts to happen, your symptoms begin to creep back in, you feel confused about what to eat and what to avoid, and you get into a cycle of being 'on the wagon' or 'off the wagon'. You may have made great strides with your healing diet and learned a lot about yourself in the process, but ultimately this restricted way of eating isn't sustainable and you find it hard to know how to navigate happy hours, social events, wedding season and a busy schedule in this “grey area.”

That grey area though? That’s life. And it's so important to be able to find healthy, sustainable ways to navigate that. If you feel like you’re either restricting your diet and feeling great, or enjoying a social life but feeling sub-par, I want you to help you find tangible ways to navigate the grey and achieve more food freedom.

Read on or watch the video below for three important points to consider when embarking on any healing diet.

1. Don’t skip the reintroduction process.

You may have done an elimination diet and felt a lot better while doing it, but once your timeline was up, you went back to your way of eating because, I know, restricting foods can be a challenge! In my opinion, the most important part of this whole process is the reintroduction portion, which funnily enough is the part that gets looked over the most.

An elimination diet allows your body to reset so that you're able to “clear the muddy waters” and really tune into how food affects you. I strongly encourage setting up a gradual reintroduction process of foods (such as dairy, grains, sugar, alcohol, etc.) to gather data about how each of these things works in your body, rather than go out and eat 'all of the things' for the next three days of your 'freedom', as tempting as it may be! Think of it as an extension of your elimination diet.

With that data you can really understand how things like dairy affects your body, how much and what kind you can have, and how it works in your own unique diet. Any type of diet, calorie counting or elimination can set you up to feel like you're either 'on the wagon' or 'off the wagon', which is why they can be pretty ineffective and even harmful if done in a haphazard way. Gathering information through a reintroduction process is really powerful because it helps us to get really clear on what works for us and to carry these good habits and new knowledge forward into our everyday lives, so that we can make empowered choices.

2. Define what food freedom means to you.

Although healing diets aren't 'easy' per say, when we have a list of what we can and can’t eat, it can be comforting and helpful to have that rigid structure. But once we get away from this structure and delve into the grey area, it can get a little more confusing to figure out what works for us individually.

I always tell people to aim for a 90/10 diet (depending on where you are on your healing journey) where 90% of the time you eat good, nutrient dense food that works for your body and 10% of the time you eat whatever you want in accordance with your body. The thing is, we don’t have a lot of guidance as to what a 90/10 lifestyle even looks like. We only know what it looks like to have strict rigid guidelines in place or to be in a total free for all!

What I would encourage you to do, and what I've been having some of my clients do lately, is to take a minute to write down or think about what 90/10 actually looks like for you. What is food freedom? What would feel really good and sustainable for you? What’s important to you?

Here are some thoughts from a client about what a sustainable lifestyle would feel like for her:

• More energy

• Lighter in mood and actual weight

• Decreased bags under my eyes

• Better digestion

• Better sleep, more rested

• Sharper focus and concentration

• Improved memory, especially short-term

• Less cranky, more even-keeled moods

• Less likely to be thrown off mood-wise, more balanced

• Like I'm really taking care of myself as best as possible - pride

How do I ideally want to feel around decision-making and food on a day-to-day basis?

• In control

• That I'm providing nutrients and healing to my body

• Like it's not such an internal battle

• Like it's not something I can discard without intention or thought or feeling badly

• What I want is to be untroubled -- less burdened -- about every decision when it comes to the choices that I make to think or dream about food, to plan meals, to eat -- to actually put things in my mouth, taste it, chew it, swallow it into my body. I don't want to feel like I have to abdicate my decisions and desires.

These are beautiful examples that came to light when she put some mindful attention to what her ideal lifestyle would look and feel like! Let me know what you come up with when considering what a sustainable diet/lifestyle really means to you, I’d love to hear.

3. What are your non-negotiables?

So maybe you’ve done your healing diet, you're feeling really great, and you've found some sustainability in your everyday diet, but then you move houses, your job responsibilities ramp up, your kids are home for the summer, stress increases and all of your good habits fall away.

You then begin to creep back into your old habits, seeking comfort in food, and have a hard time maintaining any of the momentum or the progress that you made in finding what foods work for your body. The good news? There's no such thing as being bad or good, winning or failing, there is only information that you can use moving forward.

I see clients becoming derailed by stress all the time. They then think they can’t get back to where they were, start to feel a sense of guilt and begin this process again of being on the wagon or off, rather than finding a way to maintain health even during the most stressful times. 

What I encourage you to do is to have some non-negotiables in place that you hold steady to or even increase during times of stress. During times of stress we may let our basic needs fall away, go into survival mode, gravitate towards more sugary foods for comfort, increase caffeine consumption to feel cope with fatigue, and become a lot less mindful about what we're putting into our bodies. In reality, what we want to do is increase these practices during crazy, stressful times.

When I’m stressed and crazy busy, my non-negotiables are:

• Have a good breakfast with protein, fat and veggie carbs

• Have 10 minutes of silence daily

• Drink water and avoid coffee

Instead of making loads of excuses like I used to, I now say to myself, “This is just what I do. During times of high stress, I do these things more rather than less. No matter what!” This will allow you to get out of a constant cycle of being on and off the wagon and allowing external life influences to derail you at every step.

---

If you want to talk more about what this looks like in your life specifically, I always offer free 30-minute discovery sessions to get clear on your major health concerns and what’s standing in your way.

We are all unique and will implement each of these strategies differently, so contact me to set up a consultation and we can create a plan of action specifically for you.

In Health, 

Christina Tidwell, MN, RN, CHC

---