Holistic Health Revolution: From Quick Fixes to Lasting Wellness

Ever felt like conventional healthcare is just patching up the symptoms without addressing the root cause?

This episode uncovers the limitations of traditional health, lifestyle, and diet approaches, emphasizing the necessity of a holistic, trauma-informed, and epigenetics-based perspective.

By considering the whole individual and delving into factors like genetics, lifestyle, and values, we aim to uncover root causes rather than patching up symptoms. Through examples covering mental health and weight management, we emphasize the importance of addressing underlying processes for long-term well-being. 

I also advocate for personalized recommendations that genuinely address root causes to foster your long-term success with the health habits that you implement.

Prepare to transform your approach to wellness and embark on a path to sustainable physical and mental well-being!

How to Work Together

• Free Training! 🔥 Ignite Your Holistic Mental Wellness Transformation
• Join Calibrate 🧬 Become Your Own Medicine by Harnessing the Power of Your DNA & Daily Choices for Optimal Health & Mental Wellness (50% off on pre-sale now!!)
• ✨ Book Your Mental Wellness Breakthrough session! This is for courageous folks who are ready to ditch the physical and mental health symptoms, take their life back, and embody their most flavorful, fulfilled life. (New Client Session)

Links & Resources

• Join the Community & Dive Deeper on the Unforked Newsletter (This is where you sign up to receive my potent AF affirmations & more!)
• More Resources & Holistic Wellness Services
• Full Episode Shownotes & Transcripts

Thank you to YOU, the listener, for being here on this journey together.


With a full heart (but always room for a slice of pizza),

Haley Schroth, RDN, LD, CPT, RYT, CMWC | Founder & Integrative Mental Wellness Coach

Transcript

Haley: 0:03

Howdy friend, welcome to Unforged, an unfiltered holistic nutrition and mental wellness podcast for evolving folks that crave a delicious life of fulfillment. Haley, here I am, your host, a trauma-informed functional medicine dietitian, holistic mental wellness coach and the founder of the Fulfilled Fork. On this show, we dish up insights and activations while learning about sustainable mind, body, soul lifestyle practices. It's sweet, it's savory and it'll spice up your life. To stay connected, make sure you sign up for our unforked email list at thefulfilledforkcom. Forward slash links. Let's dig into the episode. Thefulfilledforkcom. Forward slash links. Let's dig into the episode. Howdy friend, and welcome back to another episode of Unforked. If you are new here, I am so stoked to have you, and if you have been around for a while, welcome back. I am just so grateful that you're here. If you have not yet downloaded the free Ignite your Mental Wellness training, go ahead and do it already. You're going to love it. Like you're going to love it, I already know it. So Ignite your Mental Wellness training is my free training on how to ignite your mental wellness transformation so that you can confidently step into your next level of health through the power of epigenetics. In the training, you are going to learn the differences between mental illness and mental wellness. You're going to dive deeper into the continuum of holistic mental wellness and how I use nutrigenetics to tap into your unique health blueprint. There we go For more potent, sustainable results in your health, your goals, your manifestations and in your overall life. You are also in the free training, going to learn about why you're not seeing results in your physical and mental health yet. What is going on If you're not seeing results yet? There's clearly something underneath the surface that is happening and is making it more difficult for you to, one, have the health that you would like to have and, two, build that solid foundation of holistic mental wellness so that you can live your most fulfilled life. There's clearly something going on if you're not seeing your results yet. Or maybe you're just wanting to optimize we talk about that too. So inside of that free training, there is a personal mental wellness assessment and an intuition check because you know I love intuition around here, so important and so this self-assessment for mental wellness is going to support you in integrating the information that we talk about in the class, and it's going to help you decide what your next steps are to reclaim your health and wholeness. I am so confident that after you go through this mental wellness training, this free Ignite, your Mental Wellness training, you are going to better understand my comprehensive, holistic, trauma-informed, epigenetics-based approach to health and it's just gonna. It's gonna change the way you view your health and it's just gonna. It's gonna change the way you view your health I already know it and it's gonna change the way you move forward with claiming your health and your most fulfilled life. So if you have not downloaded that yet, please go ahead. There is a link in the show notes for you to download the free training and it'll go straight to your inbox once you have signed up.

Haley: 3:45

Wonderful, today we are diving into the missing piece of conventional health, lifestyle and diet approaches. This one's going to be a little spicy. Yeah, we're talking about why the conventional health, lifestyle and diet approaches do not work in a lot of cases. Not no shade against any conventional healthcare, because it has absolute like. There is a. I believe in both the conventional healthcare treatments and the more holistic-based approaches. I think that the sweet spot is using them in combination when needed, but always looking at it from a holistic point of view. First, first and always, first and always. That is how I view health and wellness, and we are going to dive right into that today.

Haley: 4:51

So what is the missing piece, you might ask Haley, the missing piece in the conventional health space, in the lifestyle and diet approaches, those conventional approaches, is that the individual, which is you, you are not fully considered. That's a bold statement and, yes, you, you are not fully considered when it comes to conventional healthcare approaches. Why? Because when you're not looking at it from a holistic, whole body approach, you're not looking at the, why You're not looking at the root causes or potential contributors to your symptoms, of really crucial information that can help you feel better faster and help you be more sustainable in your health and diet and just overall wellness.

Haley: 5:54

Sustainability, as you know, is one of my core values and it's just so important because most of the clients that I have seen actually important, because most of the clients that I have seen actually I would say almost every single client I've ever seen has had some component of well, I've tried this before, I've tried that before.

Haley: 6:14

I've worked with this coach, I've worked with that coach, I did this program, but it never taught me how to be successful in the long run. I never learned the why I never learned the approaches that are going to help me be successful over the long run, because they were patching symptoms, because they were quick fixes, because they were just one-size-fits-nobody approaches Right. And so, with nutrigenomics and nutrigenetics, I help you make impactful and practical recommendations that are personalized to your lifestyle, your body, your needs, your health history, your values, your trauma, etc. Etc. Etc. Like we are diving deep into you, you, and that is just so, so important if you want to have sustainable results in your health and your life, because this work, this work that we do with health, trickles into every other area of your life.

Haley: 7:24

Like, you just see life differently, and so when we're talking the holistic whole body approach to physical and mental health, we are focusing on the pieces of your health that will actually move the needle, that will actually move the needle to help you feel better. That is so important Because you could be doing the whole try this, try that, try this, try that oh my god, nothing's working. Or we can use epigenetics, we can use that holistic whole body approach that is, yes, personalized to you and also that teaches you the why, not only like the why of your symptoms, but like the why and the how to do it so that you have sustainable results, like for the rest of your life and you don't have to keep like learning the same lessons and backtracking and backtracking. It's like when uh, we're going to use a dating analogy it's like when you date the same person over and over and over again and you're like gosh, dang it. What the hell is going on? I don't understand why I can't find a good guy, why I can't find a good girl. And it's like well, because you're repeating the same habits over and over and over and over and over again and you're not addressing the reason why you are picking those people. And it's the same thing in health, right? It's the same thing, it's the exact same thing.

Haley: 8:49

So, in my experience with clients with myself, we can feel better, faster, because we directly target certain nutrients and those nutrients are acting as both the building blocks and cofactors in the biochemical processes in your body. So, for example, biochemical processes like inflammation, detoxification, methylation, and just there's so many, there's so much going on in there and it's all connected. So remember that it's all connected and that what we do for one area is going to be impacting the other area, right? So we are going to dive deeper into the importance of the processes, the biochemical processes in your body, like the methylation, like the detoxification, the inflammation. We're going to look at those things, even oxidative stress. We're going to look at those things each more in depth in future episodes, but for now, what you need to know is that these processes, when working optimally, can do amazing things for your health, like boost your energy levels, your mental clarity and cognitive functioning gets better, increases your health span.

Haley: 10:00

So that's the time of your life that you are actually healthy and not sick. Right, it can. When these processes are working optimally. It reduces stress, it reduces anxiety, it reduces depression, it builds your resilience, it balances your hormones, it helps your body repair its own DNA. All kinds of things, all kinds of things.

Haley: 10:27

A side note with DNA is that life is life and you cannot get through life without coming into contact with some sort of toxin, with some sort of damage to your body. Right, because it's just life and we're humans and we are not immortal. Right, and so our DNA is going to become damaged over time. But how do we mitigate the negative effects? Right? How do we protect ourselves from, like excessive oxidative stress, excessive inflammation, excessive dna damage, um neuro degeneration? So when? Um so like protecting us from getting alzheimer's and dementia. So, anyway, I digress, though.

Haley: 11:15

So what we're talking about is that we need to be looking at root cause approaches versus patching our symptoms, and I know you heard this before like it's kind of a buzzword root cause, root cause it's kind of a buzzword in the health world. So I just want to really explain in this episode what the hell I'm even talking about when I talk about root cause versus like one size fits nobody, just patching symptoms, kind of healthcare, right? So we talked about how the conventional approach to health care, diet and lifestyle is looking at the person and attempting to fix their symptoms with that one-sized-fits-all approach that it's not considering fully considering you, the individual, not saying they don't consider you at all, because of course they do, but it's not fully considering you and your unique body as the individual if your DNA is not involved, if your trauma is not taken, if your trauma is not taken into consideration, for example. And so when we are looking at a approach like that, that's a one-size-fits-all, quick fix. It's like patching holes in your little aluminum boat. So you're on the water, you've got your aluminum boat, and all of a sudden you're like, oh shit, there's some holes here and you're just throwing patches on there trying to keep it from sinking.

Haley: 12:48

That's what the conventional healthcare approaches can often feel like for us, and sometimes that's the results that we get. Right, that's the results that we get, and so it's probably going to be where you do okay, for a while you're patching your boat. You're like, okay, cool, cool, cool, we got it. Like we're not sinking. I can go a little bit further and you might even be able to get a long ways with those patches, but eventually your boat's going to sink. Your boat is going to sink because there's only so many patches that you can put on the boat and in the case of your health, the boat is sinking, and that could be. We'll just we'll just use a metaphor. So that could be like developing a disease, right? So at this point, your boat is definitely sinking.

Haley: 13:43

You've developed some sort of disease, whether it's diabetes, whether it's a mental health condition, whatever it is. There's so many things that can happen right, so many things that they can happen right, and so with that is that you could just be throwing medications at it, like at yourself, and hoping that it's going to fix the problem. So this is like when somebody has depression or adhd or debilitating anxiety, whatever it is. It's like throwing the antidepressants at the depression and saying, oh, it's going to fix it, and maybe going up in dose and up in dose and up in dose and saying, oh, it's going to fix it, it's going to fix it, it's going to fix it, but never addressing anything else, never addressing your lifestyle, never addressing your diet else, never addressing your lifestyle, never addressing your diet, never addressing your trauma and your mind, like your mindset and what's going on there. And it's just not going to work that way. It's just not going to work.

Haley: 14:48

I've seen this happen so many times with so many people who take antidepressants, for example, and yeah, they just think it's going to fix their problem. Or maybe they're taking anxiety meds and just, oh my God, this is going to fix it, I don't need to do anything else, and that's just not true and it's okay to do like there's nothing wrong with doing that for a while. Sometimes we need the patches right, we have to have the patches to survive. So I'm not saying that we can't do that or that it's not beneficial at any point in time, because it is, but at some point. Addressing more is really, really, really important if you want to feel better, if you want to potentially decrease those symptoms, potentially even get rid of those symptoms. Like I say for a majority, it's not that we'll never feel anxiety again. In most cases, it's that a majority of the time. That's not what we want our reality to be. We don't want to be anxious most of our days, most of our weeks, most of our years. If we experience it at all, it's fleeting, it's momentary, and then we know how to cope and be resilient and get back to what I would call in this instance is like our true health right, our true selves.

Haley: 16:14

So, with this example of the antidepressants, there are many biochemical processes, like methylation, for one example, that could be a root cause or a strong contributor of the depression, of the anxiety, etc. There is likely multiple things going on, however. There is likely multiple things going on. However, that could be just one quick example is if you have a genetic variant I'm just going to use the most common one that some people are aware of like the MTHFR, maybe the COMT, those genetic variants and those SNPs that could be greatly contributing to your body's ability to make neurotransmitters and to keep them around. So you might be degrading the neurotransmitters faster. So it could be too pronged. Right, I'm kind of getting into a rabbit hole here. But you could have difficulties making certain neurotransmitters and, on the other hand, you could also be degrading the ones that you do make faster, and so then we can see how okay.

Haley: 17:30

Well, if my body is not making those neurotransmitters properly, potentially this is just in isolation, just looking at methylation, which when I look at a person, I am looking at the whole picture. I don't just look at one piece like methylation. We're also looking at gut health, inflammation, detoxification, all these other pieces, oxidative stress. So so, yeah, just one example, but there there could be imbalances, I guess. Is what what I'm saying, without going down that rabbit hole even further? So it could also be like a, a non-depression kind of example is that maybe your poor gut health or your inability to clear toxins is why you're having a hard time with weight gain or weight loss resistance, so you're having a hard time losing weight. Fun fact, yes, if your body has a difficult time clearing toxins, that could be messing with your hormones, your hunger hormones and all kinds of other things in your body that need to be functioning optimally so that your body can let go of some weight, so that your hormones are more balanced and I don't like that word balance but so your hormones are working more properly, so that you don't get extremely hungry or crave certain foods and find yourself like binge eating, right.

Haley: 19:09

So back to our patch job on the boat. This patch job is what we can refer to as a downstream approach. With the downstream approach, we're patching the symptoms and you're not addressing the why behind the symptoms. So again, it's really really important to be looking at the biochemical processes occurring in your body and where these processes might need additional support from certain nutrients or and I'm saying and or alterations in your lifestyle. So maybe you need certain nutrients, maybe you need some supplements, maybe you need to change some lifestyle factors. Usually it's a combination of both, due to those SNPs, those genetic variations that are present in your genetic code, and, of course, how it interacts how your genes interact with the environment and, of course, how it interacts how your genes interact with the environment. So your current environment, your past environment, can also affect how your genes are expressing themselves. So again, that's the epigenetics piece.

Haley: 20:27

So all that to say, all that to make the point that when I say that we are looking at your body on a cellular level, I am not kidding. We are looking at your body on a cellular level. We are looking at the biochemistry. I mean, usually it's just me, unless you want to be a nerd with me, and then we can dive into it together. But not everybody wants to be a nerd with me, which is totally fine, that is a-okay. Then we just go into the why, without going into the details.

Haley: 21:03

Right, my approach is to dig deep and to analyze your symptoms and your health history, of course, including the trauma, the labs, in addition to your genetic testing and your values and your lifestyle and so much more, so that I can get the full picture of what is likely going on in your body and your life and so that we don't have to keep patching the boat. So we don't have to keep patching the boat, and so we can look at it from that root cause approach and really solidify the foundations of your health. So, in combination with all of that, we are also working together. This is part of the sustainability piece. So we're working together to uncover your values, uncover your vision for your life and your health, so that I can help you be, yeah, sustainable with your health, so that you don't have to keep repeating the same patterns over and over and over again, and so that you can embody and be in alignment with your values for your life and your vision for your life. It's really important because you know me and I know, if you're here, you have some big shit you want to do in your life and you just want to live a good fucking life. You don't want to settle, and that's what we do here at the Fulfilled Fork. That is my approach. I'm not here to settle. I know you're not either.

Haley: 22:39

So, and when we're looking at the alignment piece, we're looking at alignment in health and in life, because they are one in the same, and I believe that if we do not have our health, we do not have our full life, that we are only experiencing a fraction of our life if we do not have our health. If you pause and think about it, just see how that feels in your body. If you pause and think about it, just see how that feels in your body, because if you are limited by anxiety, you're limited by depression, you're limited by fatigue, you're limited by hormone imbalances. You're limited by your health symptoms. If you're limited by any of those things or other things, you're only experiencing a fraction of your life, because I bet you're avoiding certain things, like we'll just use anxiety as an example. So when my anxiety was really really bad back in the day, I would avoid a lot of social situations because I had debilitating social anxiety Just so bad, so bad, and because of that I was missing out. I was missing out on so much of my life and what now brings me joy, like being in community and being social right, it's a really important part of health and so with my anxiety at the time, I was just so limited and that was actually causing some depression.

Haley: 24:04

If you are being limited, you're only experiencing a fraction of your life, and I'm not saying that you can't have health issues or health diagnoses and live a full life, because that is not true. You can be diagnosed with a health condition, as most of us living on earth will be at some point in our lives and still have a fulfilled, thriving life. We're not about ableism here. Health is not ableism. Health is not perfection. We need to remember that health is different for every single person. So when I say this, I'm not speaking about some idealized version of health. I'm literally talking about like, what is your next version of health, what is your next version? And not limiting ourselves based on conditions of our life. And so if you are not actively working on your health, if you are not actively not even working on but taking care of your body and your mind and your soul, you will not truly have health, you will only have a fraction of it.

Haley: 25:05

So when we think about the health being different for every single person, that's where the Ignite your Mental Wellness training. I talk about the continuum, so the continuum of struggling to surviving, to thriving. So, again, we want to live in that thriving state a majority of our lives, just more often. Right, and this is going to look different for every single person on earth. It doesn't matter who you are. For you, and a level of health where you feel better, where you have more energy, you have more mental clarity, you have more resilience in your emotions and your ability to fight infections, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Like we could, we could go on and on and on about this.

Haley: 25:59

So, if you're not living your fullest life, it's like settling to watch a teaser to a movie on your cell phone, so like a tiny screen, and you're watching this teaser to the movie, so you're only getting a really small piece of the movie, and maybe it's a good piece, maybe it's all right, but you're not experiencing the fullness of this movie and you might be watching it over and over, and over and over and over again. It's like repeating the same patterns, right? And so I don't know about you, but I want to watch the full film in all of its fucking glory, and I want to watch it in the IMAX. I want the full experience. Right, I want that full experience. I want the IMAX version of life. I want to feel like I'm thriving physically and mentally and emotionally and spiritually, and I want it all. And there's nothing wrong with wanting it all if this is you too. So if that sounds like a hell yes to you, if any of this sounds like a hell yes to you, oh my gosh. Yes, I need this.

Haley: 27:03

I have two options at the time of this podcast. It may change if you're listening to this at a later date. Just check out the show notes, go to thefilledforkcom and head to my services page Also a link in the show notes there. But there's two options to work with me right now. One is through private coaching holistic mental wellness coaching where all of my attention, all of my knowledge, all of that is focused on you. It's focused on your health and your most fulfilled life, like all my attention on you, so that we can really dig deep, dive in together and help you find and be the next version of yourself in your health and in your life. The other option right now to work with me is through Calibrate, which is currently on presale, by the way.

Haley: 27:58

Calibrate is my signature nutrigenomics program that teaches you how to harness the power of your DNA and daily choices, so the epigenetics piece for optimal health and mental wellness, while we're building those foundations for your most fulfilled life. So it's not just nutrigenomics, we're also building the foundations of holistic mental wellness, which when I say holistic, we're talking holistic, we're talking it all. We're not just looking into nutrition here. And so Calibrate does include a one-on-one private session with me to go over your genetic test results, of course, because we need to dive into that together. And there's also the program, there's also the curriculum that takes you through the foundations of holistic mental wellness. It takes you through every single thing you need to know about nutrigenomics, culinary genomics, so how to actually put the information into practice in the kitchen and in the grocery store, like when you're actually going out and buying foods, or if you're not buying them yourself, like what you're choosing.

Haley: 29:15

If you are ready to jump in to calibrate on pre-sale, definitely do it now, because we're 50% off of the full price. Yes, the price is going to go up when the program is fully live, so right now is your chance to jump in at the lowest price. That it will be Wonderful, my friend. Well, I hope to see you inside of Calibrate, inside of my one-on-one coaching and if you're not ready for those yet, definitely hop into the Ignite, your Mental Wellness training, with affirmations. You are going to have the support straight to your inbox to step into that next level of health, to live your most flavorful, fulfilled life. Right in the inbox, my friend, right in the inbox. Oh, wonderful, well, wonderful, my friend. Well, thank you so much for being here.

Haley: 30:27

I hope you enjoyed today's conversation, all about the missing piece of conventional health, lifestyle and diet approaches. As always, if you have any questions you want to have a conversation about today's episode, send me an email. There's a little button also in the show notes where you can text me, which is really fun. So yeah, I would love to hear from you. My friend and I will see you on the next episode. Thank you for listening to Unforged. You can find all resources and links from this episode in the show notes at thefulfilledforkcom forward slash podcast. If you enjoyed the episode, we'd love if you'd send it to a friend and rate and review the show on either Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Then email us a screenshot of your review to howdy at thefulfilledforkcom for a one-time credit to use towards our wellness services at the Fulfilled Fork Chat soon.