Food Isn’t the Enemy: Reclaiming How You Eat

[00:00:00] Hey there and welcome to Heal with Grace. I'm your host Grace Secker
[00:00:04] and I'm a holistic licensed therapist and nervous system coach who believes that the chronic and often unseen symptoms
[00:00:10] you're living with are a sign of something deeper going on. A sign that your nervous system needs attention. In each episode
[00:00:17] I'll share the science behind the most common chronic health disorders plus holistic health tips using mental physical and spiritual practices.
[00:00:25] You'll hear what I've learned in my journey and the true stories from our trusted guests
[00:00:30] so you can feel less alone in your experience and give yourself grace no matter what you're going through.
[00:00:35] So without further ado, settle in and get cozy. It's time to Heal with Grace.
[00:00:40] Hello and welcome back to the Heal with Grace podcast. This is an episode that has been
[00:00:49] very much so needed and people ask time and time again for me to talk about
[00:00:55] food sensitivities and tolerances and
[00:00:58] and
[00:00:59] honestly, lots of people don't even realize that they can
[00:01:03] heal a lot of intolerances and
[00:01:07] it's something that I don't hear a lot of people talk about because there's so much
[00:01:12] out there these days about what you should eat, what you shouldn't eat, what's gonna heal you,
[00:01:17] what's gonna help you, food is medicine, which let me get this straight. I don't doubt that and well, I don't discount it,
[00:01:23] I should say. Food is medicine. It's beautiful medicine in so many ways.
[00:01:28] But as you'll see throughout this episode,
[00:01:31] there's a lot of times where we can take that too far in the extreme and then we get really rigid and fearful and nervous and
[00:01:38] there's just so much meaning behind food and then it actually negatively affects our bodies instead of positively.
[00:01:44] So what I'm actually going to do is I'm giving you all a little sneak peek of one of the lessons in the Mind Body Healing Method.
[00:01:51] So I'm literally giving you this full lesson, this food sensitivities lesson and a podcast episode.
[00:01:57] So that you can see some of the real healing and teachings that happen behind the scenes in our program and then also get all the information here.
[00:02:05] Okay, let's just jump right in. So
[00:02:08] welcome to this teaching on food sensitivities.
[00:02:12] This is for you if you're exhausted from trying to eat perfectly and
[00:02:17] still feel like your body reacts to everything. If you've cut out gluten, dairy, sugar, histamines,
[00:02:24] lectins, and you're still struggling, you're not alone.
[00:02:28] I've definitely been there. I've been told to cut out all the things and
[00:02:32] again, this is a tricky subject because I am not discounting that food is not medicine and that
[00:02:37] we can really help our bodies by eating some very loving, nutritious and
[00:02:43] wonderful foods, not only from a physical food level, but also from a cultural, meaning, emotional level, right?
[00:02:50] Like food brings people together. Food is love, is care, is happiness.
[00:02:56] And at the same time, when you've been down the road of chronic illness and symptoms and all the things,
[00:03:02] you've probably been told that you need to be on a certain diet to heal your gut, your histamine reactions, your
[00:03:08] icy, your migraines, whatever it is. And what I'm going to do is debunk a little bit of that. But again,
[00:03:15] food is great. Food is lovely. Food is medicine. I'm not saying
[00:03:18] to not treat it that way, but we need to disassociate food as being the answer
[00:03:24] and that we need to have fear around it. So this comes from a very personal place and
[00:03:30] a very passionate place because I've seen so many clients come through struggling so hard. I mean,
[00:03:35] sometimes to the point where they've been shamed by their doctors because they ate
[00:03:42] a certain food that they were told not to, even a bite of it. And their symptoms flared the next day.
[00:03:47] And so they were kind of shamed like, oh, well, you ate that, you know. And oh, that just hurts my
[00:03:53] heart. I just, I don't want you to feel that way. Because that's not true. That's just not true.
[00:03:58] So like I said, I've been there. My world shrank down to just 10 foods at one point about,
[00:04:04] I wasn't fully counting, but about, I was completely terrified to eat something wrong
[00:04:08] because it would send me into a huge histamine reaction, huge headache, migraine type thing would
[00:04:13] put me in bed for the rest of the day. What I didn't know then was that healing food sensitivities
[00:04:18] isn't just about changing what you eat. It's about changing the state your body is in when
[00:04:23] you eat. And then in recognizing that it's not just about the food. It's the fear response
[00:04:28] in our brain. So let's dive into how your nervous system, your gut and your brain all
[00:04:33] work together and how to finally feel free from around food. So I ended up building up an intolerance
[00:04:42] to literally anything, like anything, everything. There was one time I was having a topochico,
[00:04:49] like a sparkling water and I reacted. And I remember being, I put it down and I was like,
[00:04:55] what the f? This is insane. I was hopeless. I went into a full blown just spiral of I give up,
[00:05:05] this is bullshit. You know, just like, I didn't know what else to do anymore. I had built an entire
[00:05:10] system of rules around food to try to avoid my symptoms because it was directly related to food.
[00:05:14] Literally, I would eat 10 minutes later, I'd have a symptom, I'd have a horrible
[00:05:18] histamine reaction. But what I know now again is that that doesn't have to be the case.
[00:05:24] And so eventually, yeah, I was down to just super plain food. Even that just didn't even feel
[00:05:31] fully safe. And I wasn't addressing the root cause, which was the state my nervous system was in
[00:05:36] and everything that was happening around that time, the fear, the vigilance, the overanalyzing,
[00:05:41] it all kept me in survival mode and survival mode kept me stuck in my symptoms. Also,
[00:05:47] I have to note that I have a previous history of eating disorder. And so it's really kind
[00:05:51] of like my body, my brain is like, well, we know that's an issue, right? So there's a vulnerability
[00:05:56] there. There's a vulnerability to food. And so when the stress response, when you're really stuck
[00:06:01] in the stress response, your brain is going to look at any kind of vulnerability that you've had
[00:06:06] before, and basically send danger to that again, or like highlight it. So I had a feeling,
[00:06:12] I was like, this is, this is weird, like definitely triggered eating disorder stuff again.
[00:06:17] I was like, man, I feel so good about this. I've moved past this in my life. What is happening?
[00:06:22] It was, it was rough. The healing came when I began to shift out of fear and end to trust
[00:06:30] and then truly recognize like, oh, it's not the food. It's my brain. It's my nervous system.
[00:06:35] Food is actually safe. Food is love. Food is happiness. It's not about the food.
[00:06:41] And so that's when I started to shift and work with my brain, work with my nervous system
[00:06:45] into regulation, into listening to my body and not micromanaging it. So what I want you to understand
[00:06:53] is that digestion can only happen when your body feels safe. The parasympathetic nervous system,
[00:07:00] the, what do we call the green zone state of your nervous system, is the rest and digest,
[00:07:05] literally how's the word digest in there. And it allows your gut to release enzymes,
[00:07:11] move food and absorb nutrients. But when you're in the fight or fight, all of that slows down. It's
[00:07:17] like your brain is telling your body, we need to run from danger. So we don't have time to digest
[00:07:23] this meal. And actually the food that you're putting in is just causing a slowness to fight
[00:07:28] off danger. So it's really not okay to have that food. So we're going to, you know,
[00:07:34] reject it essentially. And this is why even eating healthy food can trigger reactions
[00:07:39] when you're dysregulated. And then also over time, you might notice that all this, you're reacting
[00:07:44] to so many different foods, or you've been told maybe that you need to stop eating certain foods,
[00:07:49] and then you become really afraid of them, and then you become intolerant towards them.
[00:07:53] Your brain might be reacting to the threat state, not the food itself. So you can think of
[00:07:58] symptoms like bloating, pain or flares as your body waving like a red flag. I'm overwhelmed.
[00:08:06] It's not the food. The food is not evil. But your body is saying that your body saying,
[00:08:12] I'm overwhelmed. This food is evil. We're going to reject it. Your gut has its own nervous system.
[00:08:18] The enteric nervous system often called the second brain. It communicates constantly with
[00:08:24] your actual brain through the vagus nerve. So when you're in a chronic state of stress,
[00:08:31] your body produces less stomach acid, fewer digestive enzymes and slows the motility.
[00:08:37] And that means that food isn't being broken down, absorbed or moved properly. And that leads to
[00:08:44] symptoms. But there's more. It's really not just this physical response. Because you can say,
[00:08:49] okay, well, if this is happening, then obviously there's a physical reason. Yes, there is. But
[00:08:54] what's underneath that furthermore is your brain, your brain starts to associate food with
[00:09:00] danger. So if you once had a flare after eating, say strawberries, your brain might now sound the
[00:09:06] alarm anytime it sees strawberries, even if they're not the problem. And this is fear conditioning.
[00:09:15] And it's totally reversible. I also want to highlight that we live in a culture that glorified
[00:09:22] food restriction. Even if it has nothing to do with symptoms, we're told to cut out gluten,
[00:09:27] sugar, dairy, histamines, grains. The list is endless, right? Just to be healthy, to be skinny,
[00:09:32] to be fit, to be in your optimal health. And the problem is that everybody's body is different.
[00:09:41] So your body might need something different than someone else's. And also a complete balanced
[00:09:48] way of eating, balanced amount of foods really has the most optimal health benefit in it in
[00:09:54] general. And then also food is medicine in a way where we use it to cope. So let's take a second just
[00:10:02] to even talk about the fact that food, sometimes we can use to cope, right? So we might emotionally
[00:10:08] eat a little bit more, or we might restrict to feel and control of something when we feel
[00:10:13] out of control in our life. We use food as a mechanism of control. It feels like it's
[00:10:19] controllable. Like it didn't make sense, right? Okay, just eat this way, you'll feel better,
[00:10:23] you'll look better, all the things you'll, you know, symptoms will go away. So on a surface level,
[00:10:29] it's like, okay, cool, if I do that, then great, I'll be better. And that's easy. It's,
[00:10:33] you know, very steps one, two and three, it's very objective. But it doesn't work like that.
[00:10:38] We are not computer systems. We're humans. And we have meaning with food and feelings and
[00:10:44] emotions. And, you know, it just doesn't work that way. So there's this kind of like myth to
[00:10:51] controlling food. And the people that can and like really can do it, or they stick to a certain
[00:10:57] diet for a long time, they're not better or yeah, they're not better than you. And to be honest,
[00:11:04] probably doesn't last that long. And if it does, there's definitely something underneath.
[00:11:10] And here's what we're not told is that eating from a place of fear activates the same stress
[00:11:16] response we're trying to avoid. When you eat with anxiety, shame or tension, your gut can't
[00:11:23] function properly. And worse, you actually start stop trusting yourself, you rely on rules instead
[00:11:30] of internal cues. So clean eating becomes a way to control your symptoms, not heal them.
[00:11:39] As Mark David says in the slow down diet, it's a, it's a book and by the way, it's not a diet.
[00:11:46] He says that fear of food is more toxic than the food itself. I'm going to say that again. Fear of
[00:11:52] food is more toxic than the food itself. And I have found that to be true over and over and
[00:12:00] over again with myself as well as, I mean, to be honest, it is like one of the hidden,
[00:12:06] I'm going to say hidden symptom because we don't talk about it as enough and people don't recognize
[00:12:10] it as a symptom, but it is so common. Almost every single person, I don't have exact numbers on this,
[00:12:16] but I can pretty much say almost every single person that comes through my program that I've
[00:12:21] worked with one on one around chronic symptoms and illness or actually even outside of that,
[00:12:26] even if they have nothing, no pain or symptoms, deal with some sort of food insecurity and
[00:12:33] tolerance instability because it's just everywhere. It's like, do this and fix yourself, right?
[00:12:40] So I, as you can tell, can get a little fired up about this. If you don't know, I was an eating
[00:12:47] disorder therapist before focusing on chronic symptoms and illness and I still am. I very
[00:12:51] much so love to work with eating disorders or disorder reading. I just see the overlap so,
[00:12:57] so much that even if you didn't have a history of disorder or eating before
[00:13:01] working with chronic pain and illness, many people develop disorder reading when they have
[00:13:06] chronic pain or illness because of how they're trying to help and fix themselves. And so food
[00:13:11] becomes complicated. You start thinking about it every morning, every night, and you can't go out
[00:13:17] to eat because, or you could, but it takes like 30 minutes of researching to try to figure out
[00:13:22] the menu and what you can modify just to go and eat. And then you're afraid the whole
[00:13:26] time and you're not engaging because you're worried about the food and how it's going
[00:13:30] to hurt you or not hurt you. And it takes over your mind space, takes over your life.
[00:13:35] So we want to get out of this fear-based place by acknowledging actually what's going on and
[00:13:41] then learning how to soothe your nervous system and your brain with it. So what does fear food
[00:13:47] actually look like? I mentioned a little bit, but I want to give you some more examples so
[00:13:52] you can recognize like, oh, maybe that is me, you know? So it can show up as obsessing over
[00:13:58] ingredients, rereading menus, avoiding social gatherings, panicking before and after a meal,
[00:14:05] waking up, trying to plan your day around food, eating with anxiety, and then flaring,
[00:14:11] even when you followed all the rules. That's so confusing. Oh, that happened to me too many times.
[00:14:16] It might feel like your body is constantly betraying you, but really it's protecting you.
[00:14:22] So these are survival responses. The more you try to control food from a place of fear,
[00:14:28] the more the body reinforces that threat. This pattern is especially common and people
[00:14:34] dealing with hypersensitivity syndromes. So histamine intolerance, interstitial
[00:14:40] cystitis, IBS, mold illness, migraines, so many other things are all conditions where
[00:14:46] the nervous system is hyper reactive. And these are all conditions and they're often
[00:14:51] worsened by the fear loop. So that's why no amount of elimination diets ever feel like
[00:14:58] enough because the root issue isn't just in your gut. It's in your brain-body connection.
[00:15:05] So we're going to work on healing that loop, not just managing it. And I want to note too
[00:15:11] that if you have a true allergy, like a true dairy celiac allergy, I am not saying that you can just
[00:15:20] get rid of that. Now there might be some people that say that and you know what, work with your
[00:15:26] brain, work with your nervous system, work with your quantum field. And if it helps,
[00:15:32] come back and work with me and come back and tell me. I would love to know your story.
[00:15:36] I just don't want to put that out there right now because that is not my experience.
[00:15:39] So I want to validate that with a true or like peanut allergy or something, right?
[00:15:44] I am not saying you can brain train yourself out of that. I'm talking about the intolerances that
[00:15:49] have all of a sudden built up over time and you've been told not to eat gluten or dairy or sugar
[00:15:53] or whatever because now it's affecting you. So that's more of what I'm talking about.
[00:15:58] So first and foremost, real healing starts with helping your body feel safe with food.
[00:16:05] So for example, before a meal, take 30 seconds, take five minutes,
[00:16:11] anywhere from 30 seconds to five minutes. So ground, breathe, soften your shoulders,
[00:16:20] place your hand on your heart or your belly, turn off your phone,
[00:16:26] sit down and connect. Take some deep, deep breaths to settle your nervous system.
[00:16:34] Visualize your gut relaxing, your stomach receiving nourishment and your food being
[00:16:41] digested with ease. Remind your brain that what you put in your body is safe and not only is
[00:16:50] it safe, it's medicine, it's nourishment, it's love and track those moments that you feel okay
[00:16:58] when food didn't cause symptoms. That's your evidence. Start to eat in a mindful way,
[00:17:06] breathing with the food, really acknowledging that the food is safe and medicine is nourishment.
[00:17:12] And when I say this, I mean do it over and over and over again. When I first started
[00:17:18] to get out of the symptoms, I would do this like a million times over and over and over every time
[00:17:25] I ate. It might sound like a lot, but it's repetition that helps your brain be like,
[00:17:30] oh okay, okay, all right, all right, don't need to be in danger. And when it feels right,
[00:17:35] begin to expand. One food, one bite, one breath at a time. It takes practice.
[00:17:44] So not only do you really, you need to recognize actually what's happening in your body,
[00:17:50] but you also start to expand that green zone parasympathetic state around food. So you remind
[00:18:02] yourself that what you're eating is healthy and loving and yummy and joyful. You breathe with
[00:18:09] your nervous system. You relax your shoulders, your pelvic floor. You imagine your stomach as loving
[00:18:17] and accepting and inviting and receiving everything that you put in it. And you imagine your brain
[00:18:23] sending signals of love and excitement and acceptance towards everything that you put in your body.
[00:18:29] You take bites with mindfulness, with nourishment, with space. You're getting away from watching
[00:18:36] TV or being on your phone or being super distracted when you eat. You're not eating when you're
[00:18:40] working. You're not eating when you're driving. You are making intentional time around food and
[00:18:45] around mealtimes. This signals to your nervous system. It's safe. And you might feel a little
[00:18:50] antsy. You might feel a little anxious around this when you do, when you pause to actually
[00:18:54] really enjoy your meal, plate your meal, love what you eat. I don't care what it is. It
[00:19:01] could be anything from the most gourmet meal to a peanut butter jelly sandwich.
[00:19:07] It is the best thing ever that you're putting in your mouth and your body. It's from this state
[00:19:12] that your brain and your nervous system start to settle and accept that food as
[00:19:18] not dangerous and is actually loving and helpful. So I want to note too that when your nervous
[00:19:24] system has been stuck in survival, it's hard to tell what's true. Hunger or fullness feels
[00:19:30] like you might eat only when it's safe or overeat to numb. This is really common. It's adaptive.
[00:19:39] It's a disordered place of being when you don't actually know when you're hungry,
[00:19:42] but you're going to eat anyway. We talk a lot about this in disorder of eating and I wanted
[00:19:45] to make a note here of it. You forget your cues of hunger and fullness because you're
[00:19:50] just eating on a clock or maybe you're not really eating at all because you don't know
[00:19:53] what to eat and then you kind of turn off your hunger and fullness cues. But we need
[00:19:58] those to know when are we hungry? When do we need to eat? When do we need to stop? So I want you,
[00:20:04] if you're listening on the podcast, you can Google hunger, fullness, cue scale. And if you are in
[00:20:11] the program right now and listening and watching this, you can see the scale that I have here on
[00:20:15] the slide to help you start noticing the subtle signals again. There's no pressure,
[00:20:20] no judgment, just gentle curiosity. So you're going to check in with yourself before you eat.
[00:20:25] All right. How hungry am I? Where am I on this hunger fullness scale? Am I at a three and I'm
[00:20:31] two and I'm starving and haven't eaten in eight hours? Or maybe I'm at like a five or six where
[00:20:40] I'm, you know, getting, I'm hungry, but I'm not super starving. And what we want to do is
[00:20:45] watch ourselves and pay attention to how our stomach feels, how our body feels.
[00:20:49] When you get up to around eight of fullness, you want to stop. If you get past that,
[00:20:54] you're overly full and uncomfortable. And this takes time. It takes practice. And this healing
[00:20:59] is possible when you stop trying to control your body and start learning and trusting it.
[00:21:04] And this hunger and fullness cue really helps you trust your body. Even if you don't deal
[00:21:10] with this hunger and fullness and you scale or cues, it really helps you to get in tune. Like,
[00:21:16] okay, how hungry am I? What do I want to eat? Am I super hungry? And I feel kind of faint or
[00:21:22] or, you know, I just, I feel a little weak. Like I definitely need all the food groups. I need
[00:21:26] protein. I need a carb. I need some veggies or whatever. Or maybe I just want a snack and,
[00:21:32] you know, maybe what kind of snack do I want? Do I want something sweet? Do I want something
[00:21:37] crunchy? Do I want something soft? Start to ask your question yourself, these questions with
[00:21:42] curiosity. It helps build up the trust you have with your intuition and with yourself,
[00:21:47] with your stomach. So this is for my Mind, Body, Healing Method students. You will find a
[00:21:54] short guided meditation in your student portal. It's called nourishment with safety and it's
[00:21:59] designed to help you reset before eating. You don't have to be perfect. This is just intentional.
[00:22:04] The more consistently you eat from a state of regulation, the more your body will begin to
[00:22:09] trust food again. So you can listen to this before you eat, after you eat, whenever.
[00:22:14] And it's to build that safety as a practice with yourself. Just by listening to this,
[00:22:20] you're already changing some of those danger signals because your brain now understands
[00:22:26] that it doesn't have to react. Again, it's practice. It'll take some time. But remind
[00:22:32] yourself over and over again. You have a wise and healthy body and everything you put in it
[00:22:39] is with love and everything you put in it is nourishment, no matter what it is. I know that
[00:22:46] sounds kind of crazy, but I really want you to hone in on that and take it slow and keep practicing.
[00:22:53] If this episode resonated with you and you are someone who's like, oh my gosh, that is me.
[00:22:58] And that's an addition to other pain or symptoms that I am dealing with right now.
[00:23:04] We would love to have you in the Mind, Body, Healing Method. It's a three month
[00:23:08] program. I give you so many skills and tools and insights and this is just one little tiny
[00:23:13] sneak peek of what it entails. And then we have weekly group calls so we can keep you accountable
[00:23:20] and really work one-on-one with you as well throughout the calls and throughout the weeks.
[00:23:24] We also have chat support. We can talk with you every day if you need it. And all I want
[00:23:31] is for you to feel better. I just want you to feel better. And there's already so many
[00:23:36] people in this making progress. And I would love for you to join to make some progress as well.
[00:23:41] So if you are interested, please see the link below. DM me, ask me any kind of questions so we
[00:23:47] can make sure it's a right fit for you. And keep giving yourself so much grace and flexibility
[00:23:53] and compassion. Keep healing with grace and I will see you next time.
[00:23:58] If this podcast means something to you, it would mean so much to me if you could do
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[00:24:23] as others. Thanks for listening and I hope this brings you hope on your journey.