What is Mental Health Nutrition? And How Can It Help With Your Sugar Cravings?
Welcome to the Satiated Podcast, where we explore physical and emotional hunger, satiation and healing your relationship with your food and body. I'm your host, Stephanie Mara Fox, your Somatic Nutritional Counselor. I'm thrilled to be chatting with Stephanie Small today. Stephanie is a licensed clinical social worker and nutritionist. She is trained in trauma therapy, internal parts work, somatic therapies, and more. She ran a nutrition program at a substance abuse recovery center in Denver, Colorado, and has a private practice online and in Boulder, Colorado. She writes for national and local publications, consults for mental health agencies and substance abuse recovery centers, speaks at live and online events, and she's the creator of the course, mental health nutrition for psychotherapist foundations, delivered through the academy for Addiction and Mental Health Nutrition. I personally met Stephanie through a work study program I was doing when getting my master's degree and have been following the evolution of her work ever since. So welcome, Stephanie.
Stephanie Small 01:08
Thank you. I'm really glad to be here. Thanks for having me.
Stephanie Mara 01:11
Yeah, I'm thrilled to be connecting with you today. And I would love to just start off with what is mental health nutrition, and why is it important?
Stephanie Small 01:21
So mental health nutrition, we can define as the art and science of using supplements and nutrition to stabilize biochemistry, and then by doing so, reduce or eliminate mental health symptoms. And that includes anxiety, depression, insomnia, substance cravings, you know, symptoms. And that includes anxiety, depression, insomnia, substance cravings, you know, OCD, like PTSD, like all the acronyms, right? I've worked successfully with all of these conditions, with mental health nutrition.
Stephanie Mara 01:52
Wow. So can you provide an example of specifically of how, because you've had so much experience even offering this in, you know, the abuse recovery world, I'm curious if there's a specific example of how that would even look like or how that would play out.
Stephanie Small 02:09
So what it actually looks like, like how I deliver it?
Stephanie Mara 02:11
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Stephanie Small 02:13
And then, you know, everything you ask me, I literally could talk about for an hour, I'm already anticipating, but you know, so the particular way that I structured this is mental health nutrition is actually kind of one of those infinitely complex topics, because it's anatomy and physiology. So everything I learn, I'm like, Oh, God, now I need to learn like three more things to fully understand this. So what I've done is, is, you know, in the process of first doing the mental health nutrition at the substance abuse recovery center, and then embedding it in my own practice, I've kind of dialed it down to a three session model. And for the majority of people who I work with, and I've worked with hundreds of people at this point, the majority of them, three sessions is enough to make a huge difference. Sometimes it's up to six, but we actually always start with the digestive system. Because the gut is the gateway to health, and you are what you absorb. And, you know, there's a lot that I could talk about with that when I'm educating my clients about why we're starting by talking about their poop and their bloating and their skin problems. You know, I explain that there's a number of ways that our digestive systems function impacts mental health, one of which, being simply that if you're not breaking down your food adequately, and extracting the nutrients and sending them where they need to go, nutrient deficiency alone can cause mental health symptoms. It has been linked in studies to everything from anxiety to depression to schizophrenia, you know, so that's one reason.
Stephanie Small 03:48
Another has to do with the production of neurotransmitters, the feel good chemicals, but when we're low in them, we're more likely to have issues with mood, sleep, energy, focus, cravings. A lot of our neurotransmitters, as you know, are made in our large intestine, up to 90% of the serotonin that the body can manufacture is made in the large intestine. So then I'm like, if we think someone has low serotonin, you know, they're depressed or panicky or have obsessive thoughts. Why are we jumping to give them a psych med, to fire more in the brain, more serotonin, rather than looking at their digestive function and going, Wow, you're having diarrhea all the time, or like you have gas all the time, like, clearly things aren't working optimally in there. And again, and again and again, when I see people coming in with those low serotonin symptoms, and problems with the digestion, we heal the digestion, and the next week, they come in, and they're like, Oh, I am obsessing a lot less or my mood is a lot more stable, or I'm not having those cravings. So that's another reason, you know, just to help our digestion make maximum neurotransmitters.
Stephanie Small 04:59
And then the third I talk about is inflammation. So basically, even conventional Doc's know that, you know, chronic inflammation is connected to mental health symptoms, but they're not looking at what's causing it. And then their answer is take anti-inflammatories. We know in the holistic health world, inflammation is pretty much caused by the modern American lifestyle, which is stress, which can just be caused by living in a colonized culture and everything that that entails. But it can also be caused by the foods that we're eating, you know, modern foods that our bodies like, what is this? Alcohol, certain medications. And, you know, when we have inflammation in the gut, that actually can flip on switches for anxiety, depression, etc. So that's what I start with, I start with the gut, it's not that hard to get. I mean, I would say like 49 times out of 50, it's not that hard to get the digestion working a lot better. And then the other foundational piece, aside from digestion is simply nutrition. Like, what are we putting in our mouth every day, because we're only made up of what we're eating, as well as the animating life force. And, you know, I'm sure you probably are like minded with me where we have this tension, because we understand the ramifications of like, processed foods and food allergies. And at the same time, we never want our clients to feel restricted. So there's this balance of like, getting the system enough in balance to where you can really listen to your body and go ooh, actually don't feel good when I eat that food, you know, rather than like, its a bad food!
Stephanie Small 06:42
So we start there, and then that often does a lot. But if that doesn't get my client where they want to go, the next step is we look at specific neurotransmitter support with supplements. So there are supplements that are the raw material to make more neurotransmitters. And like this is this is what I kind of like honed my skills in with the at the substance abuse recovery center. People who are in early recovery are so depleted of neurotransmitters and nutrients, they're like, low, low in everything. And then when you give the body what it needs, including supplements, because sometimes you need that concentrated nutrition. It's like pouring water on a wilted plant, you know, people who, who were addicted to meth, who would get sober and had no energy, right, because meth is depleting of catecholamines. And so they would reach for gummy worms. Because sugar fires catecholamines, they reach for energy drinks, because that fires catecholamines, to be able to function. But eventually they pick back up because they're like, I cannot function without this. Oh, guess what, now they're like, eating supportive foods, balancing their blood sugar and taking l-tyrosine, which is helping the body make more catecholamines naturally, and they're like, for the first time ever, I have adequate energy, this is a reason not to relapse, right. You know, the same thing with alcohol, you know, all kinds of other drugs. So that's, that's generally how it goes. And yeah, there's a reason I do it so much. And I typically am embedding this in the front end of my therapy practice with clients or just coaching. But I also see people just for mental health nutrition, too.
Stephanie Mara 08:22
Yeah, you know, so much that we explore on this podcast, and even that I explore with those that I work with is sometimes it's the emotional realm. And sometimes it literally is that something needs to be healed in the physical realm. And so a lot of what I even talk about here is how the emotional basis of cravings. And so you mentioned cravings, and sometimes actually, the craving is coming from a physiological imbalance. And so I'm curious if you could speak more to that around because I know a lot of individuals get in their head of like, Why do I keep craving this thing? And like, why won't this craving go away? So I'd love for you to kind of expand on that a little bit more.
Stephanie Small 09:00
Definitely. And I love how you distinguish between this could have an emotional cause, or this could have a physical cause. And I talk with my clients about that a lot, that there's three realms that we actually need to heal, and then I add a third one, which I call spiritual or connection realm. Right? So we might be having sugar cravings, because, you know, there's physical, physiological imbalance, we might have sugar cravings, because we don't know how to deal with our emotions and the sugars numbing them. We might have sugar cravings, because we're, like, super stressed out, because we have to work 60 hours a week to pay our rent and guess what a cupcake is a nice bright spot in our day. You know, and that's what I call the systemic and just to put in this tiny piece about like, a lot of this imbalance comes back to the fact that we're not living in the way that we were designed to live. We're just not. Because I think if we were living more the way we were designed to live, cravings just would not be as much of an issue because we would be satiated on all these different levels, but you're asking about what can be some biochemical causes of cravings.
Stephanie Mara 10:03
Yeah, yeah. So you know, I know that we've really delved in here exactly like you were just pointing out that this emotional reason can be from a sense of, you know, wow, my body feels very dysregulated. And craving, the things that we crave, can also often feel very regulating in the body. And sometimes that's more coming from a physical realm where something is dysregulated physically, that actually needs more attention.
Stephanie Small 10:34
Yeah. So what I will use as an example is sugar, because that's such a common one, right? So this is actually really helpful for people to know about, because it can take away a lot of the like, shame around, I have no willpower, why do I keep going for this? Right? So there's a couple of reasons, from a physiological standpoint, why we might crave sugar, one has to do with dysregulated blood sugar. So if we're not eating enough, if we're not eating frequently enough, and importantly, if we're not eating enough protein and fat throughout the day, you know, if we're skipping meals, you know, if we're vegan, and we're not really being mindful, right, our blood sugar is going to crash. And there's a lot that has to do with this blood sugar roller coaster and mental health in general. You know, when the blood sugar crashes, people report, you know, poor focus and low energy, some people even get depressed, but something that happens in the body is the body craves something that is going to be a quick hit to bring the blood sugar back up. And so that's not going to be like salmon and kale. It's going to be the cupcake. Again, I'm not trying to demonize cupcakes. But this is what happens, right?
Stephanie Mara 11:49
Yeah. They're very effective in that moment.
Stephanie Small 11:51
Yeah. So that's one big culprit, you know, is is that blood sugar crashing, and I noticed myself when I'm not eating enough, or regularly enough, or getting enough protein and fat, you know, like, I'll randomly start thinking about chocolate or something and it's like two o'clock. And that's not usually the time I think about chocolate. I'm like, what is up with you? I'm like, Oh, I remember what I had for lunch, not enough protein, and then I'll bring in some protein and it helps that usually helps the craving.
Stephanie Mara 12:17
Yeah. And I think that's, that's such an important point to kind of pick up on of sometimes our cravings are literal. And sometimes they're interpretive. Of sometimes we actually have to say, Oh, I'm craving this because actually, my body is needing this other thing. And sometimes the body doesn't know how to say, like, give me a piece of extra protein. It says, I need more energy. What do I know will give me more energy? Ooh, sugar will do that. Even if it's not the thing that will be the most stabilizing input.
Stephanie Small 12:50
Correct. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So there's other situations where we can have sugar cravings that have to do with dysregulated biochemistry, and that has to do with being low in certain neurotransmitters. Sugar actually fires a number of different neurotransmitters. It fires serotonin, it fires endorphins, it fires GABA. And it fires catecholamines. So like, that's a lot, right. That's why when we eat sugar we're like, AHHHH! You know?
Stephanie Mara 13:22
I feel great for this moment!
Stephanie Small 13:25
And in so many ways, right? Because each neurotransmitter gives us a different feeling. Each one has a different effect. You know, the catecholamines give the energy and focus. The endorphins are like the treat reward pleasure feeling. The GABA is the calm one, you know, and serotonin is like, mind chilling out feeling more flexible. So if we're low in any of those, our body might be asking us to have sugar so that temporarily, we're getting the hits. But over time, we keep getting the hit, keep taking the sugar, we get more and more depleted at baseline, our stores of neurotransmitters get lower and lower, which in turn causes more cravings.
Stephanie Mara 14:06
Hmm, gosh, that is fascinating. And so I want to point out that, like you said, this doesn't have to do with willpower. You know, I think that's so important to keep in mind when someone is struggling with maybe an increase of cravings, that this is not your fault, that this is actually information from your body that there's something going on.
Stephanie Small 14:28
Yes, exactly. Exactly. It's a symptom, which means something's out of balance. That's it. So then we find what is out of balance?
Stephanie Mara 14:36
Yeah. So in this process of kind of like stabilizing your biochemistry, I'm curious, this piece around Intuitive Eating. And so I talk a lot here about why Intuitive Eating might not work for an individual, which I find that when someone's starting the process of healing their relationship with their food and body, the most mainstream thing that is out there is actually Intuitive Eating and to go straight to that is actually maybe not the most effective thing at first, that other healing emotional and physical needs to happen to be able to intuitively eat. And so I'm curious about from like this physical standpoint, why does that need to need to be addressed first before even Intuitive Eating can happen?
Stephanie Small 15:23
Yeah, yeah, I think we're probably really on the same page with that. I remember reading like, you know, a long time ago, Geneen Roth's book and she talks about, you know, when she let herself eat only chocolate chip cookie dough for like three weeks or something. And I'm like, I would feel so terrible if I and believe me, chocolate chip cookie dough was actually a major binge food of mine in my 20s, like, I would get those rolls from the store and eat them like a popsicle. There's so much I could say about this. But, here's, here's where I'll start. Just what I said, right, about if we're out of balance, like we're low in certain neurotransmitters, we're going to crave things that fire those neurotransmitters. And by the way, that's sugar. That's also drugs and alcohol, and certain behaviors, right? So if we're out of balance, and we're like, Hmm, I'm gonna do Intuitive Eating, what am I craving? And it's like, SUGAR! Okay, well, I want to be permissive with myself, right? So I'll eat some sugar. And then you eat some sugar, but really, that's just kind of perpetuating the the out of balance cycle. And okay, what do I want? MORE SUGAR! Right? So that's why, you know, every everything requires a balance of structure and flow, everything. There's not one thing in this world that doesn't require both that I can think of, there's probably some quantum physic thing, but like, the point is, like, Intuitive Eating, I just feel that I just feel that it can get very extreme of like, and then if you question it, it's like, oh, you're being health elitist, and judgmental, and it's like, No dude, like, our body needs certain things to have stable blood sugar, it needs certain nutrients to function well. And so I talk to my clients about like, eating in a way of stabilizing blood sugar and reducing inflammation not being strict, but giving them information about, hey, when you do this, it's impacting your blood sugar like this, that's gonna cause a problem. You might have cravings, you might get anxiety, whatever. So follow these 3 pillars and then when you do there can be an intuitive flow within that about like, you know, okay, I'm trying to do a good amount of protein at every meal. What protein feels like a yes to my body today?
Stephanie Mara 17:41
Yeah, I'm so in line with that. That's kind of exactly how I approach it as well. And also changing internal language instead of I can't have this. It's no, you can have whatever you want, whenever you want to have it. And would this give you the sensations that you're looking to feel in your body long term? So it's starting to learn that, oh, you know, when I do this over and over and over again, as I observe it, it actually makes me feel less stable, more dysregulated, it's not giving me what I'm looking for. And then it goes from a place of I can't to I don't want to, so that you are putting that power back in you that it's not that you're going on a diet, it's not that you are aren't honoring your body. It's saying like, hey, I can have this. And I've actually noticed that this doesn't feel like the most respectful thing. And so I'm going to choose something else out of a place of I do want to honor and care and respect and listen to this body and the messages it's been sending me.
Stephanie Small 18:40
Exactly, exactly.
Stephanie Mara 18:42
So how can people learn more about mental health nutrition? You know, where does someone even start on this journey? Because what you're sharing is so fascinating. And I think a lot of individuals, we need to bring in these, these new perspectives, that it's just like, Okay, if you've also done a lot of the emotional work with a therapist, a counselor, a coach, and there's still something hanging out, it's like, Oh, is there something more that I could explore physically, and I like to view everything as an exploration. No, you are not broken. You are not something to be fixed. It's just there's always maybe something to be explored within your body to be like, Hmm, how is my body talking to me now?
Stephanie Small 19:25
Yeah, yeah. And it's all learning and it's all information. And it's like, you know, I've been dealing with some, as an aside, I've been dealing with some health issues, nothing major, but I'm like, this is a pain in the butt. And oh, my God, I'm really learning some cool stuff along the way.
Stephanie Mara 19:40
Yeah. I love that reframe also, of just viewing it as Wow, look at my cool body. And the way that it's talking to me through these symptoms, and these cravings and these urges, and can I actually see this as deepening into relationship with my body not that I've done something wrong or that my body is bad or wrong. It's like Oh, this is just an opportunity to deepen in.
Stephanie Small 20:03
Yeah, God, there's so much in our culture around like, the ideal body well is a lot of things. But one of one of the things about the ideal body is that there's nothing ever quote unquote wrong with it. It's never out of balance, which it's literally not even how our body works. Our body's constantly coming in and out of balance, constantly.
Stephanie Mara 20:24
Yeah, I'm so glad you're bringing that in, you know, I think it's the same thing, when individuals are exploring any kind of journey of the, you know, a lot of the healing journeys is like, Okay, you're going to get to this place, and then everything is going to be perfect from here on out. And that's just not the way that happens. It's when you bring yourself back into balance, something is going to go out of balance again. And the more that you kind of cultivate this deeper relationship with your body, you might catch it faster, to bring yourself back into balance even quicker.
Stephanie Small 20:56
And for me personally, like it really lights me up to teach and educate. And so like my reaction when I was dealing with this latest health things like, Now, I know so much more to like, tell other people and people don't know this. And so like, I'm on this one, like Whatsapp group with women and I'm like, did you know that blah, blah, blah, and blah, blah, blah? And they're like, Oh, thanks for the information. You know, a lot of this stuff is not widely talked about, right? You're like, you're like, how do we find out more about mental health nutrition? Yeah, that's not like a readily accessible topic. You have to seek it out. So I just love this, like, a mycelial model of us all gaining information and then spreading it, you know, amongst each other for the good of all of us. You were asking how, how...
Stephanie Mara 21:41
Yeah, where does someone start? Are there books? Are there resources? Are there programs? You know, how can someone start diving into this world?
Stephanie Small 21:51
So when you were reading my bio, I was like, oh, I need to update my bio because my my course is it used to be just for psychotherapist is now for everyone its just called Mental Health Nutrition Foundations. So I, I took my two nutrition certification courses, plus everything I've learned on my own, distilled into a five week course into Mental Health Nutrition Foundations. I have, I have therapists in it. I have people working at nonprofits, I have parents who are interested, you know, I have nurses, doctors, you know, anybody. So so that's an it's also not through the academy. It's like, you can find it on my website. I think that's an awesome resource because that's what I designed it for. However, there's other resources. There's a number of books actually that people can seek out if they like to DIY and just want to start like investigating on their own. Let's see, I can definitely recommend like the work of of Leslie Korn. Trudy Scott online. Oh, my God, I just I'm like, if I had more hours in the day, I would just listen to all of her summits.
Stephanie Mara 23:01
Yeah, there's so, she puts out so much information.
Stephanie Small 23:04
So much! It's overwhelming. But I'm like, I'm like very happy every time I see it. It's like, yay, people are getting this information. Let's see. I mean, these will probably a lot of them be like classics to you. But like Gut and Psychology Syndrome by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride. That's a bit of a tougher read. But it really focuses on the connection between gut and mental health, gut function and health. Obviously, Julia Ross's work. Let's see she has a new one that I haven't read. But The Mood Cure, and The Diet Cure. I'm the one thing about The Diet Cue that I can remember that I don't agree with is that she espouses low fat, I think, I think she talks about like...
Stephanie Mara 23:42
It's a very old book at this point.
Stephanie Small 23:44
Yeah. Yeah. So maybe not, I don't know.
Stephanie Mara 23:47
She's definitely still a great resource. I think, you know, just with how long she's been in the field, she, you know, I think feel like that was like the groundwork of where I even first heard about this connection. And I think she has just even beneficial quizzes at the beginning of her books that you can start to even be like, Well, what kind of imbalance might I have?
Stephanie Small 24:09
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And that can be helpful. And at the same time, I kind of caution people that when you're starting to step into the natural medicine world, it is like the Wild West, and if you DIY, it's like throwing spaghetti at the wall. Like I'll have clients come in to me, like, once in a while, Oh, I read Julia Ross and so I tried some l-tryptophan and it didn't help and I'm like, Yeah, that's because your gut is a mess. And we need to heal that first. And that's why you're not making serotonin. Oh, okay. You know, like, there's people like me who are trained to be able to look at this in a very systemic way. But, I think it's like it's a good place to start. Kelly Brogan.
Stephanie Mara 24:50
Oh, yeah.
Stephanie Small 24:51
As an author. There's more. There's more, but those are a great place to start.
Stephanie Mara 24:55
Yeah. That's a great start. I'm curious if you have a success story and not necessarily that I want to use the word success, but like a transformation story of just like, oh, wow, you know, I did these protocols and here's what this person came to me with. Because I would love to like, I'm a visual person, of just like, what kind of is that outcome? And what's the process that you maybe worked through with someone to get them to this, like, very different place in their body?
Stephanie Small 25:24
Yeah. I mean, literally, this isn't to sound arrogant, but like, I have hundreds. And there's a reason that I do this work. It's really transformative. And I will say the number one thing that my my clients say to me is, why don't people know more about this stuff? Like, why isn't this a common thing? It's, it's, I've changed so many people's lives with this. And it's, it's not like, Oh I'm so great. It's, I had access to this information and latched on to it. Because I'm like, This is so special. This is so helpful. So I'm like, alright, you know, its hard to pick one, but I think it's probably most relevant for your podcast to talk about, you know, clients that are coming to me around relationship with food.
Stephanie Mara 26:07
Yeah. You know, a lot of our listeners are often navigating patterns of emotional eating or binge eating like you were talking about before. And yes, there's a rich, emotional place to heal in, like, why that pattern is even coming in to begin with. And I'm curious, from your experience, what have you seen, if there's a certain case that you can think of around someone you worked with that was working through patterns of emotional eating and binge eating that you applied some of these things and like, that just went away.
Stephanie Small 26:40
Oh, yeah. Well, there's, there's a few themes that I'm going to pull kind of pull out from different types of clients. So there's the clients that come to me, and they say, I need to work with you, because I binge eat, or I'm a sugar addict or whatever. And I'm like, okay, and we always start with the mental health nutrition. And they think, no, this is emotional. And I'm like, Okay, hang on, though. Let's just see. So, So there's definitely the clients who think that this is all emotional, and then I find out, they're skipping breakfast. They're eating a small lunch, maybe a regular dinner, and then they're like, face down in pint of ice cream at night. And I get to explain to them, no, no, this isn't that you have no willpower. This is that your body is hungry, and your body wants a certain amount of food every day. If you don't give it that, it usually it's going to force you to make up for it at some point. So you know, people even just adding in more nutrient dense food, eating more regularly stabilizing the blood sugar. That's that's one thing. And I remember I'm just thinking of one client in particular, who she had really bought into that 1970s and 80s like low fat, low calorie diet crap, which no, God, I mean, like, talk about oppressive. We could talk a lot about that and just how oppressive that is.
Stephanie Mara 28:02
Yes. And all of these, everything that even came out of that, I feel like has just further separated someone from their body. As you were talking, I was even wondering about, and this might send you down a different tangent for a second of like, your thoughts on intermittent fasting. Like when you were saying, like, they're skipping breakfast, I was like, Oooo, I wonder what her thoughts are on that?
Stephanie Small 28:28
Everyone asks me about that. Yeah.
Stephanie Mara 28:30
It's it's just this again, with all of the the popularity around intermittent fasting and keto and kind of these ways that I feel like the pendulum swung the entire opposite direction. And that's not necessarily supportive either.
Stephanie Small 28:44
Yeah. Yeah. Well, okay. So little other little tangent for a little bit. I will say, a reason I was grateful to paleo becoming so popular is that we learned that fat is important. Yay, you need fat. Yes you do. I will say almost all of the people that I know who are super into IF are men and I encounter women who are like, I can't do that, and they're like, look guilty and ashamed. And they're like, I just can't and I'm like, Yeah. I was reading. Oh, God. Let me try to remember who it was. Darn, I can't remember the author of the book. But apparently there were some studies done on mice. Because there haven't been a lot of studies around IF on women.
Stephanie Mara 29:28
Are you thinking of Alisa Vitti? That's usually the person I reference around this.
Stephanie Small 29:33
Yeah. Yeah. So you know what I'm gonna say.
Stephanie Mara 29:33
Yeah.
Stephanie Small 29:34
So basically these studies are mostly done on men. When they're done on female mice they've like impacted ovaries in a negative way, impacted mentality in a negative way. I just don't and I know some women who are really into it, but especially if you have issues with relationship with food. For me, right? Like I I'm pretty good with my relationship with food. And one day I was like, I'm just gonna try this. Oh my god, I was obsessing by like six hours later like, oh, no, no, no, that doesn't work.
Stephanie Mara 30:07
Yeah. And I think that's such an important reminder of how it has to be what works for your body first. You can experiment and notice. And then, you know, if as you notice, like, Oh, I'm now obsessing over food and thinking about it more than I ever have done. It's like, let that experiment go. It's not that you were doing something wrong that like, Oh, I just need to try this harder. It's like, no, this doesn't work for your physiology.
Stephanie Small 30:37
Yes, exactly. And I know that one argument for IF is that it's more in line with what we were designed for, from an evolutionary standpoint. But I can also argue that like if the body thinks it's starving, from an evolutionary standpoint, that's going to cause obsessing, right? So yeah, you got to listen to your own body. I agree.
Stephanie Mara 30:55
Well, thanks for going on that little tangent. Because I think that's an important one that I think a lot of individuals, especially women, get really curious about, because it's gotten so popular. And I even get asked questions in my sessions of should I do this? And it's like, well, yeah, we can experiment with it. And, like, let's look at some of the research that has come out is that it is more effective for men than it is for women.
Stephanie Mara 30:57
Mmmhmmm. And men will like post, I feel great. I only ate for six hours today. I had one meal, and it was like some keto, crazy keto spread. And I ran for eight miles. I'm like, You do your thing. Enjoy that. And absolutely, I'm not going to do that.
Stephanie Mara 31:38
Yeah, yeah. So coming back to okay, so a person, one of the biggest things is the consistency of eating.
Stephanie Small 31:45
Yeah!
Stephanie Mara 31:46
So addressing that also starts to decrease that pattern of emotional eating and binge eating.
Stephanie Small 31:51
Yeah. And so this one woman that I was talking about who had really bought into the low fat, low calorie, you can see with how she was eating that, that's what she was trying to do, right, she was trying to restrict her calories. And she was eating low fat too. And she happened to say, oh, and when I get up in the morning, I have to take my stimulant, or I can't get going. And so I got to explain to her, probably the stimulant is there because your body's not getting the actual fuel it needs. So she was open to changing, you know, and when she started actually eating more food more regularly, guess what the sugar cravings dropped, and she didn't need her stimulant anymore. So there's a lot of examples of this where people come in thinking it's an emotional thing. And actually, no, you just need to like, treat your body well, you know, and feed it well. There's a couple other themes, just in relationship to kind of relationship with food when people are working on that. A really common thing, I work a lot with people with eating disorders. And a really common thing with that is obsessive thoughts, right? And so we assume that that is emotional. And so we will do these interventions around that from an emotional standpoint. And there's a range of those and some of those I don't think are useful and some of them I think are useful, right? That's another topic. But actually obsessive thoughts is a classic low serotonin sign. And it's really common with people with eating disorders, to have impaired digestion. And so they may not be making a lot of serotonin. So with a lot of my clients with eating disorders, we work on healing the digestion, they start making more serotonin. Oh, guess what, they're not obsessing about the number on the scale as much anymore. They used to be everyday counting calories on a list. Oh, yeah, actually, I've only done that twice last week. And that's not anything emotional. It just happened because they had more serotonin in the system. So that's another common theme. And then another common theme around like relationship with food and body is that people will come in being told or thinking that they are like very preoccupied with their stomach and it's actually bloating. So it's not like you have body dysmorphia. You need to love your stomach. That's a whole other thing. Trying to make someone love their body. Come on, what, No, but like...
Stephanie Mara 34:08
We've talked here around starting with just respecting that you have a body that has wants and needs and like maybe body love might come like way way down the line, like later, but that doesn't even need to be the goal. Just respect that you have a body and that it talks to you.
Stephanie Small 34:24
Yes. And and that, you know, you can take care of it. And you can, like honor its needs, you know. So basically, you know, being told you are overly focused on your stomach, you have body dysmorphia, or thinking like I'm so preoccupied with my stomach, and it actually turns out to be bloating, either because there's something just inherently off balance with the digestion or they're taking in foods that are causing bloating, which is quite uncomfortable. And so when you heal that, Oh, guess what, the preoccupation with the abdomen calms down and that that's also happened for a lot of my clients. But this is specifically in the realm, you know, as I'm saying your relationship with food. Like there's, I've just seen massive changes for just people with anxiety, people with insomnia, people with substance cravings. I've worked with lots of people in early recovery, or even later on recovery from substances. I've even worked with people who deal with bipolar disorder. And this is one of those things that like, I just feel like, whoo, you have bipolar disorder, dun dun dun! And in our conventional medical model, we're just given these diagnoses like this is a sentence and you just have this. And I'm like, this is a collection of symptoms, symptoms occur because there's something out of balance, let's find what's out of balance and heal that. And so I have worked with people with bipolar, who've been able to come off their medications, because there was a huge component around digestive function and blood sugar and the foods they were eating.
Stephanie Mara 35:52
I love that you're bringing this in, especially around, you know, eating disorders and disordered eating that oftentimes, even once you potentially go on a path to heal the patterns that were happening around that eating disorder, disordered eating, why it may be emotionally started to begin with, by doing the patterns that occurred for so long, and again, they came into your life for a reason. You know, like those patterns, you probably needed to feel safe and protected in the world, gave you some sense of control. And because maybe you were in eating disorder, disordered eating patterns for years, that causes imbalance in the body, that it's just like, Okay, if you're like, but I feel so more at peace in my body, and I feel like really excited about, you know, eating all day long. And why do I have all these like gastrointestinal issues, it's okay, you've done the emotional healing and now, maybe something physically needs to be attended to, for that deeper healing to occur, because of the potential imbalance that occurred from just the years of relying on a pattern that was sparking imbalance in the body.
Stephanie Small 37:02
Definitely, it can happen that way. And I think it can happen also to the reverse, where if we start off depleted in something, right, and we can come in low in neurotransmitters, they're depleted from stress, they're depleted from trauma, they're depleted from substance use, including sugar. So like, you could be a little kid and become like a little sugar monster, because that's like the drug for little kids, right. And again, like, I'm not trying to demonize sugar, like there's many people who can have some sugar and they're fine. But having tons and tons of it, you know, it's depleting to the system, and then that can kick off binging and all kinds of stuff.
Stephanie Mara 37:41
Yeah, makes me think of like the chicken and the egg. One came first. And both this physical and emotional healing needs to occur. So I love all of these different factors that you just went through. I feel like I could just talk to you for forever about these things. I would love for our listeners to know, how can they learn more about your work? How can they keep in touch with you? Do you have any upcoming offerings that individuals should know about? I know that you talked about your program, I'll make sure that I put the link to that in the show notes. Anything else of ways that our listeners can keep in touch with you.
Stephanie Small 38:16
So that course I'm teaching right now, I think it's the last time I'm going to teach it live. And then I'm going to actually make it a recording and put it on my website for download. And people can find it at stephaniesmallhealth.com. My website, and I also am opening a clinic at the end of August, that will be probably in Boulder, we'll be having interns that I'm training in, also as a therapist, that's a whole other realm that I do, but training in different body centered approaches as therapists but also basics of mental health nutrition, and we'll be taking Medicaid. And I'm excited about that for many, many reasons. And so if people feel like inspired about that, and wanting to learn more, our website should be up mid February, and that is a it's in Spanish. So I'll spell it out. So the name is Las Lobas Del Corazon. And you spell it LAS LOBAS DEL CORAZON.com. www.laslobasdelcorazon.com
Stephanie Mara 39:20
Awesome. And I'll make sure that that's in the show notes as well, so people can see that and click on it. And just thank you so much for your time today. You know, the work that you do is so important. And I feel like when I listen to you talking about this, just a lot of inspiration and hope that there's always something else that can be explored when it comes to your healing. And that if you're feeling that something like trust yourself when you feel like something just still feels a little off that there are so many different modalities that you can explore and dive into to bring yourself back into alignment.
Stephanie Small 39:55
Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. It was really fun to talk with you, I agree we could talk for another like three hours. Thank you for the work that you're doing and for just, you know, being not only the information that you bring, but also being a conduit of information for others.
Stephanie Mara 40:12
Yeah, thank you. Well, we will definitely need to have you back again in the future and to all those who are listening. If you have any questions, email me or I will put Stephanie's email address in the show notes as well and you know, reach out to us anytime and I hope you all have a beautiful rest of your day. Bye!
Keep in touch with Stephanie here:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kitchenwitchtherapist/
Website: www.stephaniesmallhealth.com
Contact: info@stephaniesmallhealth.com
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Nutrition Essentials for Mental Health by Leslie Korn
The Antianxiety Food Solution by Trudy Scott
Gut and Psychology Syndrome by Natasha Campbell-Mcbride