[00:00:00] Vesna: Welcome to the Peak Revival Podcast. My name is Vesna and today I'm going to talk about mind over food and how your thoughts influence your physical symptoms. Have you noticed that at times, and maybe if you're in this place right now, where you become very focused about what you're eating, maybe you're very strict about what you're eating, maybe it's not just your diet, maybe it's your exercise routine, and even though you're being very strict and watching everything you do, you still don't look or feel the way that you want, maybe you still have gut symptoms or symptoms or tiredness, and it's very frustrating for you because you're doing all the right things.
[00:01:12] Vesna: I remember years ago in my journey, I could see the link between my thoughts about what I was eating and how my body processed that food. And there is a scientific link in our body which I want to talk about. The reason why this is so important is because one of the things that I see for many women is that they've tried so hard with their diet to manage how they're feeling and manage their symptoms so they feel better. But it becomes so hyper focused that it actually creates a lot of stress and can exacerbate or create their symptoms.
[00:01:45] Vesna: So we have the gut brain axis. It's the link between the gut and the brain. And so, we have our thoughts and our feelings can influence our gut. So you would notice when you get nervous, you get a nervous tummy, um, you get butterflies. You have that gut feeling. So that's all about how your thoughts are influencing your gut. And we can do that the other way around, where food influences
[00:02:09] Vesna: So, if you're thinking negatively about food, or you're hyper focused, and there's a lot of stress around food, okay, it's not a relaxed eating environment, okay, then you're creating a lot of stress in the system, particularly for the gut, which is the Home of food digestion. And so you have to imagine that when our stress response is activated there, we're not in the best place to actually digest food. So our thoughts are just as powerful as food.
[00:02:34] Vesna: Food really is medicine. And when you see how much diet can change your energy, your mental well being, um, your weight, and the way that you feel, and your confidence, and it really You know, it's a no brainer, right? Food is medicine and makes a huge impact. But our thoughts work on the same level. Our thoughts are just as influential to our physical body and obviously our mental well being, but to our physical body as much as what you're eating.
[00:03:06] Vesna: There was a study done here in Melbourne, I believe, and they found that when low stress women ate junk food, the health impact across all markers was a fraction of that of anxious women. So what that means is that, in a very generalisation, that if you're very anxious and stressed, you're going to have more impact from junk food, compared to if you're relaxed.And that kind of makes sense, that if you're more relaxed around food, your body's going to be more relaxed, and therefore digestion will be easier and it impacts other systems. So, that research is really telling because it really points to that what our mental state is at influences a particular food. And two people will have a different reaction based on their levels of stress or based on their levels of anxiety.
[00:03:54] Vesna: So I really want to kind of bring this home by sharing a recent client's story which I think is really powerful. So she's been a client of mine for a while but she's had a history For many, many years of chronic gut symptoms, which were quite debilitating, liver problems, fatty liver, liver damage, lots of food intolerances. Now, working with her, we did a lot of the healing work for the gut and the liver and different systems, and that looked like doing a food sensitivity test and avoiding those foods. She did extensive gut repair, liver support. We supported her nervous system as well, because she was quite a high stress person as well.
[00:04:28] Vesna: And, she was a lot better, right? Her symptoms disappeared when each time she went to the doctor. to the doctor to get another blood test. Her pathology was better and better and better and better, right? she had a significant difference to her pathology reports and most of the imbalances had corrected.About a month after that, her symptoms had returned kind of intermittently, not as much, not as bad as they were, but they were, they were slowly coming back and she was like, I don't understand. I'm doing everything the same. I'm doing everything perfectly. I couldn't be doing anything more perfect than what I'm doing.
[00:05:02] Vesna: And as we were chatting, I could really hear that there was anxiety around her food plan, okay? And I asked her, I said like, do you ever deviate off plan? Like how strict are you? She's like, oh no. I am so hyper focused. I am so strict. I won't go out with friends at all, because I won't be able to eat what I can eat. When I go to family dinners, I'll often bring something that I can eat. Like, there was so, so much restriction to her life based on this food plan, okay? And I hadn't realized that she was being so hyper vigilant with her food. You know, we had a chat and I said, look, this isn't about food anymore. Okay.
[00:05:41] Vesna: You've done the healing work. You've corrected everything in your pathology. This is not about the food anymore. This is your anxiety or your hyper vigilance around the food plant and the food and deviating off plan. So as soon as she would. I'm not sure I've ever heard of a woman who would ever have a hint of something, her gut symptoms were so severe.
[00:05:59] Vesna: Okay, so she would almost relapse because of the fear of relapsing. And I know that sounds really strange, but I've seen it enough in my work to know that when I hear a woman speaking about how she's eating and how her day goes with food, I can hear the hypervigilance. When she's speaking, and that is having a direct impact on the gut, which is leading to more intolerances, more gut symptoms, but then just has this whole systemic effect.
[00:06:26] Vesna: So after we had that chat and I said to her, look, you've got to trust the process, you've done the healing work, everything's good there, okay? Now you really need to change your relationship to the food, and you need to change your thinking, and you need to start telling yourself. It is okay for me to eat that. It is safe for me to eat that. My body is healed and I can eat those foods occasionally. That is totally fine. Okay. And we really went into a deep chat about it. So she got off that call and she was really comfortable and she was like, yes, I can see how I'm creating so much anxiety and hyper focus and how much that is really affecting me.
[00:07:02] Vesna: I said to her, look, just check in with me in a month. Let me know where you're at, how you're feeling. And she did, she dropped me an email and she said, honestly, I have not had any more symptoms. I have been introducing different foods, which I haven't been able to eat for a very long time and I was totally fine. She goes, I can 100 percent see how much my mind was influencing the food that I was eating in terms of what it was doing inside her body. Now, the reason why I share this, because I do think it's really important because a lot of people, you know, You get frustrated because you're doing all the right things and you're not getting the results But I want you to look at and let me know in the comments below.
[00:07:34] Vesna: Can you relate to this? Have you seen yourself become so strict with what you eat, you know? Maybe criticized or judges of so much for going off plan or maybe you find You go off plan for one meal or one food and some of your symptoms return. Like, have you noticed this level of hypervigilance and can you see how much it's influencing your physical symptoms, your tolerance of food and, you know, your physical well being?
[00:08:01] Vesna: Let me know in the comments below.
