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I recently finished my training so that I can add Health and Wellness Coaching to my clinical nutrition practice. It got me thinking outside of the box in some really stellar ways. For example, what we say about our choices and behavior really makes a difference to our ultimate health and wellness outcomes in ways we might not expect. In this issue I take you through a couple of reflections and mindset exercises, similar to something I might do in a coaching session. By the end, I hope you’ll be able to answer this question: What would happen for your path to wellness if you made small tweaks to your language? Let’s explore. Defining Your Health Everyone has their own worries, experiences, and aspirations about their health. Some are more about physical health, and some are more about mental/emotional health. You might be interested in prevention of illness, or you might actively have an illness that you’d like to ameliorate or cure. Or both! Here are a couple of questions, then, along those lines:
I’ll wait. You Know What You Ought to Do? Read over what you wrote. How many times did you use the word “should”? How about the words, “I have to” or “I need to” or similar? Or if you didn’t write it, you may have thought it. Say one of those sentences out loud. No, really. Give it a shot. How do you feel after doing that? What are your internal sensations? What happens around your heart area? What’s the status of your mood? What’s the feeling in your gut? I’ll take a stab at what might have happened. You read aloud a sentence that started with, “I need to ….” Or maybe it was, “To [reach this health outcome], I have to ….” Your mood soured a little. Doubt and resistance began to whisper in your thoughts. Your heart area tightened, and maybe you got a teensy funny feeling in your tummy. I could be wrong about this. Please (honestly), let me know about what happened for you. Restriction, Deprivation and Resistance It’s not just teenagers that don’t like being told what to do. None of us do. When we are told rigidly how it’s gonna be, regardless of who says it or the reason, we immediately feel forced outside of our sense of comfort and safety, and even the comfort of our very selves. It makes us feel different from other people. “Should, need to, have to, ought to, and must” are words that delineate right and wrong. If we’re not doing the thing we “must” do, then we perceive ourselves as in the wrong. People who are wrong generally tend to feel unwelcome. Right away, we’re going to stick out our jaw, cross our arms over our chests, and feel defensive. Rigid right/wrong, black and white thinking is a real set up. Once we’ve bought into it, we begin to spread that kind of language all over in the most judgmental fashion. Our behavior and the things we choose (foods, movement, how we spend our time, ways of being, etc.) start being called “good” or “bad,” e.g. Oreos are a “bad” food and vegetables are a “good" food. (FYI, food has no morality. It just exists). Or we’ve got “bad habits.” What we’re secretly telling ourselves is that we are bad people when we don’t follow these rigid rules of right and wrong choices. “Oh, I’m being good today. I’m only eating a salad.” Or, “Ugh, I was so bad - I ate the donuts in the break room.” At this point many people start to restrict food or over-exercise to try to rebalance to “being good”, or they label themselves with negative words and whip themselves with negative thoughts because they’ve “been bad.” Or maybe they come to feel really stuck - at a loss and sad. The thing is, the more we tell ourselves that we “should” do something we see as health promoting or “shouldn’t” do something we see as undermining our health, the more we resist the change! Restricting and depriving ourselves just creates a longing for the thing we “can’t” have. But when we do have it, we’re morally inferior - or “bad.” Then we judge ourselves (or feel judged) for having no discipline. Another hot take is that when we “should” do something, and we’re not doing it, then a barrier grows up and the behavior starts to feel out of reach. We find ourselves toggling between the idea that we are either “bad” or “a failure.” That kind of negativity destroys motivation. Maybe, though, we have a real vision for how we want to feel in our bodies and haven’t figured out how to get there yet. We might be quietly curious about shifts in our choices that feel both intriguing and daunting. For example, perhaps there’s a pleasant way to move our bodies so that we improve our heart health or bone strength. We wonder about making our meals more nutrient dense. Balancing blood sugar could keep us from following our family history of diabetes and heart disease, but so far getting started seems overwhelming. What if - stick with me here - using different language could open the door? Reframe Please go back to your list of things that you believe would help you reach your goals. What are the ones that you truly feel called to do? Or maybe there’s low hanging fruit you hope someday to start? Or even ones you resist? Rewrite one or more of them, starting with one of these phrases:
I have written about this concept of “choosing toward” before. Open, positive language reduces barriers and invites a sense of true self-efficacy and a desire to develop competency. No one is telling you to do any of these things, not even you. It’s valid to say you don’t want to, or don’t choose to, or you’re not excited. When you do choose something you “want” or “get” to do, you have the opportunity to make it entirely yours and to blossom into who and how you want to be. You Get to Design Your World When you make a choice to release rigid language about how you might get to where you want to go, you’ll find that possibilities open right up. It turns out there is not only one food plan or exercise regimen or length of time between meals or supplement. The influencers don’t have any idea what’s right for you after all. But you do. Knowledge is power because it reveals all of your options, not because it locks you in. Once you can envision what it will be like to have the health status you long for, you get to choose how to get there. And who knows? You might even find yourself saying, “I’m excited to …” participate in some behavior you previously couldn’t imagine being yours. So what’s your preference? Where would you like to experiment? And what does authentic health really mean to you? Bonus Tip! You may have noticed my subtle use of the word “yet” above. Sneaky, aren’t I? When we look at something we aren’t doing, but that we want to be doing, and then add the word “yet” to it, all of a sudden the pressure is off and the thing we hope for becomes possible again. When we use the word “yet,” we can then think about what we might want to do to get to that outcome we envision.
Here are some examples:
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Writing about bowel habits last newsletter got me thinking about how many people misunderstand stomach acid. No, really! Look at drug store shelves and you’ll see great numbers of products designed to help you control it. But is that what you really need to feel good? To answer that question for yourself, you’ll definitely want to understand stomach acid before you take your next heartburn medication. The Irony of It All There is a real irony to heartburn, reflux, and GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disease). The symptoms of low stomach acid are surprisingly similar to those of high stomach acid. They create a burning sensation in the chest and meals that repeat all the way up in the throat. Doctors and regular folks alike too often conclude that there must be too much acid in the stomach. Hydrochloric Acid: The Friend You Never Knew You Needed Technically, stomach acid is actually hydrochloric acid, or HCl. HCl is a popular corrosive acid used for laboratory, industrial, and manufacturing purposes, and can even be found highly diluted in some household cleaning products as muriatic acid. HCl (aka stomach acid) is also naturally released by the parietal cells of the stomach lining as part of our digestion when we eat food. We first break down food mechanically (chewing, massaging by the stomach muscles) and then chemically via HCl in the stomach. The big surprise is that the vast majority of people (I’ll grant you - not all) who suffer from reflux actually have too little stomach acid. We need enough of it for proper digestion. Think of what HCl does: it’s an acid that dissolves food into a semi-liquid so it can be moved easily into the small intestine where nutrients are absorbed. HCl keeps food moving. Along with dissolving food, the increase in stomach acid triggers the release of pepsin, an enzyme that breaks down protein, and intrinsic factor, which separates vitamin B12 from animal proteins. 💡 Lightbulb Moment: low stomach acid is one key reason why elderly people tend to eat too little protein (poor digestion makes it uncomfortable to eat more than a little) and to become anemic due to low vitamin B12 and iron. You can figure out what happens when someone has low stomach acid! First it prevents food from being broken down well or quickly. Food then sits in the stomach, keeping you feeling full and uncomfortable. Undigested food can begin to ferment, and that’s when post-meal discomfort really starts to kick in. You might start to burp, feel bloated, and/or develop heartburn. This is what’s happening: the incompletely digested food puts pressure on your esophagus (specifically, the lower esophageal sphincter, or LES), causing that chunky mush to push its way back up, carrying some HCl with it. That combo irritates the esophagus and creates the burning sensation associated with reflux or heartburn. Did you know that the irritation and inflammation of the esophagus can travel all the way up, getting as far as your sinuses? It can be a source of increased mucus formation, leading to coughing and even sinus infections! All because there’s not enough stomach acid. Who is at risk of low HCl? Almost anyone can have low stomach acid. Most commonly it affects:
Problems with Stomach Acid Suppressing Meds It’s the norm for people who experience reflux or heartburn to reach for over the counter acid suppressing medicines, like proton pump inhibitors (omeprazole) or H2 blockers (e.g. Pepcid). Doctors also prescribe these medications when their patients report the symptoms. Obviously we want pain relief! However, many of my clients have taken these drugs for long stretches or indefinitely. As a result, they suffer from multiple nutrient insufficiencies, which contribute to a cascade of health conditions. Short term use - say, 1-2 weeks - does not increase these risks. Always talk to your doctor before discontinuing any prescribed medication. That said, a clinical nutritionist can coordinate with your doctor, assess your digestion and health conditions, and devise a personalized healing plan. So, what to do? Luckily, under normal circumstances there are a number of approaches to help alleviate reflux and heartburn. Since it’s pretty likely that those symptoms are due to low stomach acid, these interventions are designed to increase HCl rather than suppress it.
You might also be surprised at how your bowel habits improve when your stomach acid is on point. Et Voilá! There you have it! Stomach acid is the unsung hero of digestion. Now you know. I’d really love to hear your thoughts on this (and any other!) topic! Feel free to respond to this email. While you’re at it, send me your questions on other topics of integrative nutrition. I genuinely want to hear from you!  |
AuthorI am Mary Virginia Coffman (I go by “Mary Virginia”), a clinical nutritionist who focuses on mental health, digestive health, metabolic health, and nervous system regulation. My unique combination of clinical interventions, education, and coaching will help you feel well in body, mind, and spirit. Archives
October 2024
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