Podcast - Beating Chronic Stress With Natural Food And More

Welcome and thanks for listening to Truth Wisdom Freedom Conversations.

Each week I'm joined by various conscious leaders as we discover more pathways in becoming heart-centered human beings.

This is your host,

Author,

And spiritual coach,

Johnson Chung.

Hi Corinne,

How are you?

Hey,

Good afternoon.

I'm good.

How are you?

Well,

Good afternoon and thank you so much for joining me on another episode of Truth Wisdom and Freedom Conversations.

So for those of you who are tuning in live or on the replay,

I have here with me Corinne Ryder,

Who's actually based in Singapore.

And I met Corinne in Singapore where I lived for six years.

And she is pretty awesome.

She knows everything about the gut and the microbiome and about healing with natural foods.

And she's just a chock full of knowledge and wisdom about integrative nutrition.

She's actually a functional medicine practitioner,

A speaker,

And a consultant.

And I'm super excited to speak to Corinne about chronic stress and about food.

And we've actually done a few workshops in Singapore about this together and integrating the mind,

The body,

The spirit connection.

Today's talk is on beating chronic stress with natural food and also some other tips.

And it's really important actually to address chronic stress.

Me and Corinne were talking a little bit about the state of COVID and fear and how that affects our mind,

Our gut,

Our spirit.

And especially now more than ever,

We have to be very,

Very conscious and conscientious about what we're putting into our body,

Not just food,

But also information.

And Corinne herself has been through a whole health journey of two auto-immunes and breaking through the diagnosis,

Becoming more than just that diagnosis.

So maybe let's start there.

Maybe Corinne,

You can introduce yourself and how you got on this holistic path that you're on with beating these two auto-immunes you were diagnosed with.

Well,

Thank you firstly for inviting me.

It's always humbling to jam together and talk.

And really,

You know,

I think that the work that we do,

Which is like spreading wellness is just so important,

Especially now,

Especially now when people are just,

You know,

They're just thirsty for ways to help themselves.

So it's just,

You know,

It's a life mission for you.

I know.

And for me too.

And we're on this life mission.

And I didn't know it was my life mission to spread wellness.

I got sick at age 18 with a very simple virus.

Here we are talking about viruses.

I got the Epstein-Barr virus,

Which is a very,

Very common virus that teenagers get.

It's also known as Leukiecine disease because it passes through saliva.

I got this virus.

It sat in my thyroid gland,

Which is,

If you look at it from an energetic perspective,

From a traditional Chinese medicine perspective,

And even from an Ayurvedic perspective,

The thyroid sits on your voice box.

So it's often what you're saying or what you're not saying,

You know,

Not being heard and not being able to communicate is what often kind of manifests in the thyroid.

And so for me,

I got Epstein-Barr virus.

And at the time,

You know,

My dad's a conventional doctor.

I was the daughter of a doctor.

So I always went down the medical route.

So I went to the best doctors and the best doctors decided that I need to take antibiotics.

I took a lot of antibiotics.

I literally took two years of antibiotics.

Yeah.

And as with the virus,

I got chronic fatigue syndrome.

My immune system got very weak.

Instead of supporting my body and my immune system,

The antibodies were just making me weaker and weaker and weaker.

I was just getting sicker and sicker and sicker.

And,

You know,

It was like a little hill.

I kept it rolling down,

Down,

Down from my skin.

I broke out in this horrible eczema all over my face.

I experienced a lot of candida,

A lot of gastrointestinal problems because,

You know,

Antibiotics are like atom bombs in your gut.

Like it's like you throw an atom bomb and your gut kills off everything.

I was definitely feeling very,

Very fatigued.

My energy levels were very low.

My thyroid had gotten worse and became an autoimmune disease where the body actually attacks the thyroid.

I think I'm just an A-type personality,

Naturally bored.

I'm kind of a fighter.

I can get things done.

So supposedly my life was continuing as planned.

You know,

I went to university,

I finished my degree in law and then I did a degree in finance and I hit all the milestones.

But internally I was really falling apart.

I was really sick.

I was tired.

I had,

You know,

Zero libido.

I was just not motivated and I think I was even a little bit depressed inside.

And it took me quite a while to figure out that I'm at rock bottom.

I felt rock bottom when I was on a trip with a group of friends in Japan.

We went to Japan.

Everybody was having a great time.

I got sick because I was always getting sick.

I kept having these recurrent infections,

You know,

Anywhere and everywhere in my body.

I was like in the hotel and I was thinking to myself,

I'm 24 years old.

How come I'm so sick?

Like,

Why am I just not getting better?

And I thought,

You know what,

Something needs to change now.

It's either I continue on this path or I'm changing.

I'm nearly 40,

So 24 is quite a while back.

In those days,

Google was just starting.

So I Googled.

I started Googling,

You know,

What can I take?

And I started reading like vitamin C.

And so I started going to the pharmacy and I bought vitamin C and I started buying,

I started heading to the health food trucks because I was finding that there was all kinds of books on nutrition there,

Which was my first kind of,

I was connected more to the nutrition part.

And I started reading about nutrition.

And that's how I eventually started learning more about what you put in your body and the type of food that you eat,

You know,

Affects your body.

And I started making small changes,

Like literally really,

Really small changes,

Like cutting out some sugar,

Swapping,

You know,

Dairy for non-dairy.

And I started to feel better.

And that's when I was having this aha moment of like,

Oh,

There's a connection between what we eat and how we feel.

And that's when I decided to enroll myself into nutrition school because I thought,

You know what,

I better learn this property.

And in those days,

There was no like online courses.

There was no great books out there.

So I was like,

Well,

It's going to go learn it.

And I had,

I had time.

I was,

I was working during the day.

So I went to nighttime school and really I went to learn nutrition for myself.

I was working as a banker.

I had a great job.

I had a great salary.

And I went to study for myself.

And really slowly,

But very,

Very slowly,

I started implementing the things that I was learning on myself.

And then I started giving tips to people that I knew around me.

I was like,

Oh,

You've got a cold.

So take this or you're not feeling well,

Take this.

And people started to,

To feel better.

And I started to gain confidence that this is really something.

I finished my nutrition degree and I thought,

Well,

This is my calling.

Like I love this.

This is,

I was feeling so much better.

I thought this is where I want to go.

But what happened was I had my second child.

So I had my first child and then I had my second child.

And after I had my second child,

I got another autoimmune disease.

My second autoimmune disease,

Which is celiac disease.

And it went full blown.

Pregnancy is quite well known for kind of bringing down your immunity.

And very,

Very often if you don't understand how hormones work and how to balance your body and stress,

Talking chronic stress.

That's a huge stress on the body of pregnancy.

If you don't know how to take care of yourself properly,

And I didn't,

Your body's very,

Very weak and vulnerable.

And that's when the second autoimmunity came to me.

And that's when I actually decided to be a little bit more broad minded and understand that there is more to health than just nutrition.

And that's how I came across functional medicine and what functional medicine says.

It says there are root causes that bring a person to disease.

And until you don't address every single one of these root causes,

You're going to be sick.

And so root causes can be nutrition.

So that's one root cause.

Like how you eat,

What you eat.

You have nutritional deficiencies.

You have food sensitivities or food allergies and address that.

But it could be other things.

It could be toxicity,

You know,

Even things like heavy metals,

Like your teeth,

Your amalgams.

I read in a post that you talked about,

You know,

How you didn't get your teeth pulled out.

So root canals and wisdom teeth,

Like mouth health is so much connected to the health of your body.

But just even toxins that we're exposed to day to day,

Like the type of water we drink and the air we breathe and the pesticides on the food.

Right.

Plastic is a massive issue for us,

For us humans,

You know,

Not only for the planet,

For us,

For our health as well.

But there's other root causes like stress,

Emotional issues,

Trauma.

And until we don't heal each and every one of these issues,

You just don't get to help.

So,

You know,

If I look at my health journey,

It really just started with simple nutrition.

But if I didn't do all the rest of the healing that I did,

I would not get to where I am today.

And when I tell people,

You know,

I'm nearly 40,

But I actually feel a million times better than I did when I was 24.

Like my energy levels,

My zest for life,

My passion,

Everything is better.

You know,

Age is really just a factor here,

But it's not really what makes or breaks your health.

And learning to respect what your journey was and fix that is actually what makes a big difference.

And for me,

The functional medicine was really an eye opener.

And that's when I went and studied it and why I incorporated with when I work with people.

So when I work with people,

The first thing I'll do is I will look at their diet,

But I'm always kind of looking for underlying root causes.

And I will say to people,

Hey,

By the way,

After we've cleaned up your diet,

We need to look into ABCD because this is potential root causes for you.

And until we don't fix it,

You're not going to get healthy.

I love that.

I had a natural doctor who specializes in cancers on the show a few weeks ago.

And she,

Her perspective is that every disease is rooted in an emotional event,

That there's always an energetic cause that we cannot quite see that is more than just the physical layer,

Which is nutritional oftentimes.

And sometimes people see things only as calories.

And I know that you have this lovely quote that you love to share with people and it's from Dr.

Mark Hyman.

And it says,

What people don't realize is that food is not just calories,

It's information.

It contains messages that communicate to every cell in the body.

And it's just that.

It's we receive information constantly all the time.

And our mind is sending information to our gut.

It's sending information in way of belief systems in the kinds of emotional states we're harboring.

Is it a fearful state?

Is it a joyful state,

A hopeful state?

And all of this affects how our body processes even more information,

Which is physical nutrition or emotional gunk that gets trapped in the gut and it doesn't pass out of us.

So all of this is very important to our stress levels.

So let's talk a little bit about chronic stress and how that affects the adrenals and why,

Especially nowadays,

More people are probably suffering from adrenal fatigue,

But they don't even know about it.

And what is it anyway?

And what does it affect?

Before I jump into that,

I just want to tell you one more thing.

I think the very important thing that people are missing today is the connection between listening to ourselves.

Your body sends you signals every single day.

And when you start listening to the signals,

You can start to feel better.

But when you ignore signals,

Then you've got a problem.

So if you've got a headache and you're popping a Panadol,

Where are we going to get to?

Why do I have a headache?

You need to think about it.

Or if you've got digestive problems,

It's telling you that the food that you're eating is not working well for you.

Even if it's the most popular diet and everyone is doing it and they're looking amazing.

But if you're doing it and your gut's not working well and you're constipated,

Bloated,

Gassy,

Reflux,

You should not be doing it.

So I always encourage people,

You are your own best doctor.

And I love that you say,

Take the reins back on your own health.

So stress,

I mean,

This has been an incredibly stressful time.

And when we look at trauma and stress,

I mean,

You know,

One in four women is going to get an autoimmune disease in today's health statistics,

Which is massive.

One in three women is going to get cancer.

Stress is definitely a very,

Very big root cause in these types of things.

And chronic stress is just persistent stress.

Now,

It's very interesting when we look at stress,

It's perceived stress as well.

So it's not just the stress that's happening,

It's how are we taking it?

Because I might go through a stressful situation for me,

Which will be not stressful for you at all.

And so there is emotional stress,

Right?

And financial stress,

Physical stress,

Spiritual stress.

There's lots and lots and lots of different types of stress.

And actually,

In small amounts,

Stress is very good for our body.

Small doses of stress are good for us.

Like exercise,

When you go do yoga class or a jog or a walk,

It could be good for your body.

Even,

For example,

Heat exposure,

Like sauna or cold exposure,

Like cold water is good for your body.

I know you love to do ice baths as well,

Wim Hof and diving into ice buckets.

Love it.

And primarily because I had such a blockage and such a fear of cold.

And so just learning to breathe and train my body to deal with the stress has been very important for me.

When we're speaking about stress,

And what I think most people are dealing with in today's day and age in terms of stress is stress from not sleeping well.

The majority of people that I see are just not getting adequate,

Good,

Deep sleep,

Proper sleep.

The second stress that most people are dealing with is that they're just constantly sitting.

So they're just,

You know,

Sitting is the new smoking.

The third stress is that people are just not eating nutritious food.

They're eating processed food,

Food that just doesn't have enough nutrients to keep you going.

And we'll talk about what happens with stress and nutrients in a moment.

And the fourth stress is that they just don't have a break.

You constantly go,

Go,

Go,

Go,

Go.

Your body's constantly in fight or flight with motion.

And you don't ever let your parasympathetic nervous system to have a breather.

I'll give you an analogy.

Say,

For example,

I love to give this analogy.

When you look at a hospital,

Right,

On any given day,

The hospital has the emergency unit and then it has all the different other units.

You know,

The ear,

Nose and throat,

The cardiology unit,

The neurology unit.

You've got elective surgeries that are going on.

People have their tonsils removed or they get a mold removed or whatever,

And it's all nice and dandy.

What happens when there's an emergency or there's like a big national emergency or there's been a natural disaster?

The hospital goes into emergency mode.

That means all elective surgeries are cancelled and everybody,

All the doctors need to now go to the emergency unit to deal with this influx of people that are going to come in.

And that's the same with your body when you are chronically stressed.

Everything that's not essential for you to survive,

Like your metabolism,

For example,

Gets switched off.

And the body actually just focuses on shining a lot of blood to your brain and a lot of blood to your heart.

That's it.

Everything else like repair work,

Like producing new immune cells,

Like fighting disease,

Making sure that you're digesting your food and excreting nutrients from your food,

That all gets shut off.

And that's why for long periods of time when you've been stressed,

Your body's actually begging for a break.

But the problem with us is that we just go,

Go,

Go,

Go.

And the way that people are choosing to de-stress in this day and age is just not helping them.

Like de-stressing in front of the screen and looking at your Facebook feed is not,

It's not de-stressing.

It's actually stressing your body more.

Watching Netflix is not de-stressing.

De-stressing for different people will be different things.

The main point is that we are just,

As a society,

We're not geared into de-stressing enough.

We're not having these breaks,

Which we need to have because it's quite hard to detect from technology and from our work and from demands.

And a lot of the de-stressing is really getting in touch with the body.

It's doing embodied practices because the mind is moving so quickly at a digital pace to keep up with all the social media and et cetera,

Et cetera,

With work and the screen.

And the body needs time to rest,

To go into the parasympathetic.

And the body is a reflection of the unconscious feminine principle.

And the mind is very much the masculine structure forming everything into neat little compartments.

And so things like yoga,

You can actually do yoga and be really stressed if your mind is overly active,

Right?

You can also do lots of embodied practices if your mind is completely switched on.

You can do it in a stressed way.

But there's other ways of dropping into a more parasympathetic state that involve slowing down.

And you're right,

Like with Netflix and doing things that kind of almost go a little brain dead.

People perceive that as de-stressing,

But it's not actually allowing the space and the time for the body to recuperate.

So what are some pathological things that could happen in the body if chronic stress persists?

So one of the first things that you'll see is the digestive issues.

And so some people will say to me,

I have no digestive issues whatsoever.

But then I start digging and I start asking questions and that's what I love to do.

So I'll say to people,

Do you poop every day?

And some people go,

No,

I poop pretty much every other day.

But it's normal,

I've always been like that.

And I'm like,

No,

It's not normal at all.

You need to be pooping every day at least once.

So if you look at babies,

If you look at animals that they poop,

They eat,

They poop,

They eat,

They poop.

And that's how we're supposed to be.

We're supposed to also get the junk out of the trunk,

Right?

We need to get it out.

And so I think this is important for us to understand that you learn a lot about people by the waste that they throw away,

By their junk,

By their trash.

And the same for our body.

If you're not pooping properly,

We have an issue.

That's one thing,

For example,

Connected to your digestive system.

Another issue could be that you have low nutritional deficiencies.

So a lot of people say to me,

I have no problems with my gut.

And I'm like,

Okay,

Show me your blood tests.

And then we go through their blood tests and I can see they're deficient in B12,

They're deficient in vitamin D,

They're deficient in iron.

And the way that I read the blood tests as opposed to conventional doctors is not what's normal,

But rather what's optimal.

So when people get their blood tests,

Often their doctors say to them,

Ah,

You're good,

Everything's fine with you.

But when I read the blood tests,

I'm not looking for what's the median normal.

I'm looking for to bring you to optimal function.

Let me give you an example with iron levels because I know that this is something that a lot of people don't know.

Many,

Many,

Many people come to see me and they've got very low iron levels.

The majority of these people that are seeking low iron levels are usually women.

And so when we look into iron,

We're looking into iron storage.

Iron is an extremely important nutrient in your body because it's what carries the oxygen to the cells.

And so you need oxygen if you want your cells to actually live.

And your ferritin level should be over 100.

The majority of people that are coming to see me,

Their ferritin levels are below 50.

And they've got headaches,

Their hair is falling out,

Their skin is dull,

They're not healing as well as they want to heal from injuries.

Their skin doesn't heal as well,

Their skin doesn't look good,

Their libido is low,

Their mood is low.

I can continue,

But this goes on and on and on because they're just not getting oxygen to the cells.

So when people come and see me and they tell me that they eat a good diet,

A balanced diet,

But they've got nutritional deficiencies,

I know that it's the problem with the gut.

The gut isn't breaking down the food properly and you're not absorbing the food properly.

So whether you have symptoms or not,

You can still have issues of the gut.

And the gut is probably the one that's connected the most to stress.

And it will kind of reflect on all the rest of the things.

But stress,

If you look at it also from an energetic point of view and also from like even traditional medicine,

Stress sits in the gut.

And so that's the one place that it's going to impact the most.

Gut health is in charge of everything,

Your immunity,

Your mood and your vitality.

Everything goes down in the gut.

It's also called the second brain,

Isn't it?

Yeah.

So there's the gut-brain access and it's connected by the vagus nerve.

And there's a lot of messages going up and down the gut-brain.

But what's interesting about the gut as opposed to the brain,

We used to think that the brain was in charge of everything.

But if you look at the gut and what it produces,

The gut produces more neurotransmitters than the brain.

And if you look at the type of neurotransmitters that the gut produces,

Like 80% of serotonin,

Which is the hormone slash neurotransmitter that's in charge of feeling good.

So when you're depressed,

You have low serotonin.

So 80% of serotonin is made in the gut.

So the gut is actually really much in charge of your body.

And if you're chronically stressed and you shut that switch off,

Close the gut function down,

Okay.

Mood,

Not going to be great.

Depressed,

Anxious,

Fear,

Just even not feeling well.

And when we talk about kids,

It's the same thing.

Inability to control your emotions,

Hyperactivity.

What happens with adults is a lot of depression with kids happens a lot of hyperactivity.

And inability to control emotions.

A lot of tantrums.

Then you've got,

Of course,

Your skin.

Skin is very,

Very much connected to your gut.

So we're talking about people that have a lot of acne or just the skin isn't vital and subtle,

You know.

Then we've got skin issues,

But we've also got things like eczema and rosacea and rashes and hives.

Those are all connected.

Of course,

You've got gut issues.

So,

You know,

Constipation,

Diarrhea,

Bloating.

Pretty much every single person that comes to see me is bloated these days.

Bloated energetically.

At your energy levels are just not high.

You feel tired.

You feel like you've been run over by a truck.

These are all things that you're going to be feeling.

And then,

Of course,

Immunity.

Because,

You know,

70% of your immune system sits in your gut.

So if you think about your gut,

It's like the good bacteria that live in your gut,

Your probiotics.

They're like your body's internal police force.

And if you don't have enough good bacteria in there,

It's going to be crazy what's going on in your gut.

And your immunity is going to be lower because your body's not going to be able to fight off pathogens,

Viruses,

Bacteria and things like that.

And that's such an interesting thing that's unfolding in front of us.

Why are some people getting sick and some people not?

How come there are people that are walking around and just they've contracted the virus and have zero symptoms?

How can we explain this?

That's pretty important.

It's interesting what you said about even with children and how the symptoms manifest in the children and how it manifests in adults.

And really,

It comes down to knowledge.

And I think what people don't understand is how the body works.

Because our education system has put so much emphasis on giving our power away to someone else to tell us what to do.

And like what you were saying about a traditional Western trained doctor,

When they look at the blood result,

They're going to look at the median normal.

But if you think about the whole population,

Let's say in America,

Which is severely obese and diabetic and all of these issues,

Right?

I don't want to be that normal.

That is not how I want to gauge my optimal health,

Right?

We look at health from a place of,

Oh,

This is enough to get by.

And these are the kinds of foods that should be enough versus,

No,

I want to feel great.

I want to feel empowered.

And that's not what we're trained in school.

And even the food pyramids that we learned in school were all messed up.

They don't even make any sense.

We were conditioned to eat cereals and bread in the morning.

I don't eat breakfast now.

I intermittent fast.

And if I do have something in the morning,

It's a green juice.

I don't have a coffee.

I don't have bread.

That's not what I eat in the morning.

But that's what most people culturally,

In most traditions,

In most cultures around the world,

They eat something carby,

Right?

So what are the five mistakes that people make in the morning that screw up their gut?

Scrub their life.

Let's make it a little bit broader.

First things first is most people don't drink enough water.

We all dehydrated when we wake up in the morning,

Whether you're in the winter,

Whether you're in the summer,

Whether you have an air con or not,

You dehydrated in the morning.

Because if you had dinner the night before and your dinner had salt in it,

Which most people have,

You're for sure dehydrated.

If you drank a glass of alcohol,

You could have now times that dehydration even more.

So we're very,

Very dehydrated.

And the first thing that you should be doing in the morning is drinking at least a liter to a liter and a half of pure filtered water.

It has to be filtered because you don't want to retox yourself with toxins that are found in the water supply.

Most people will grab that coffee first thing in the morning.

You'd be surprised.

This is a question I ask every single one of my clients.

I'm like,

What's the first thing you do in the morning?

Oh,

I have coffee.

And I'm like,

Well,

Think of yourself as a plant.

What happens to your plant if you don't water it?

It dies.

It shrivels.

It dies.

And you're the same.

70 to 80 percent of the body is water.

If we don't rehydrate,

How do you expect your body's metabolism to work properly?

How do you expect nutrients to be shuffled around?

We have to rehydrate.

So that's number one.

Hydration,

Hydration,

Hydration.

The first thing I do in the morning is I go to the water filter,

Put a cup under and I start drinking cups.

I'll have two,

Three cups at least before I even talk to anybody.

The second thing that most people do first thing in the morning is they look at their phone.

And they start reading messages,

Emails,

Messages,

News.

Probably the worst way to wake up your adrenals and your stress symptoms.

So every time you see a ping,

A news headline,

An email,

Cortisol,

Which is a stressful word,

Gets shot out from your adrenal glands.

And what does cortisol do?

It shoots out a little bit of glucose,

Which in return shoots out a little bit of insulin.

And before you even ate something,

You had a huge spike and drop of blood glucose in your blood,

Which is going to leave you feeling fatigued and hungry and pretty much craving.

But it also messes up your metabolism and it makes people gain weight.

And so what I tell people is if you're feeling tired,

Actually one of the best things to do in the morning is actually go outside,

Go outside,

Stand outside.

If you can stand on the grass or on the ground and get grounded,

Even if you've got a little patio,

Go outside.

Or if you don't have a patio,

Open the window,

Look outside,

Like let that daylight hit your eyes.

Because that's actually one of the best ways to stop melatonin production and slowly switch on the cortisol,

Which is going to make you feel a little bit more awake and do some breathing,

Contemplate on the day ahead,

Be grateful for something.

I don't know,

Whatever your practice is.

I always tell people,

You know,

If you can put your phone away till after your morning routine,

That's the best thing you can do.

A little trick I do is I keep it on airplane mode right before I go to sleep so I don't get the pings and all of that.

And I make sure I go through my whole morning routine before I un-airplane mode it.

Same here.

I now don't wake up with the phone anymore.

So I just naturally wake up and I go straight to the water filter and make myself a tea and I go stand outside.

And I've tried this numerous times myself,

You know,

With kids waking me up at night.

Sometimes I don't get a great night of sleep and I wake up a little bit tired.

Doing this morning routine gives me so much energy.

You know,

Literally we'll go get water,

Make myself a green tea.

Why green tea is quite interesting because green tea has caffeine in it,

But it's also got L-theanine.

And L-theanine helps calm your brain down.

So the caffeine gives you the kick,

The shock feeling,

But L-theanine brings down cortisol.

So it's a brilliant way to wake up.

It's much better than coffee.

So I'll make myself a green tea and then literally I'll go for a walk with the dog because I'm getting my blood flowing.

I'm getting exposure to sun and to the morning light.

I look into the sun a little bit.

It's the morning light.

It helps kind of balance my brain out.

And I'm quiet.

I'm just walking.

I come back,

I'm so alive.

We have the same morning routine.

The dogs are great because they force you to go out.

So I think number one is drink water.

Number two,

Don't open your phone.

Go outside,

Get some sunlight.

Number three,

Drink something warm like a green tea,

But try to push your coffee to later on in the day if you can.

And then the fourth thing is the breakfast that you're eating,

If you're eating breakfast.

So intermittent fasting is amazing.

And there's a lot of studies done on intermittent fasting.

Interestingly enough,

None of the studies have been done on women of reproductive age.

And this is a problem.

And this is what I always tell my clients is that when you read stuff in the media,

You've got to be very careful because a lot of the stuff that's good for everyone might not be good for you.

And so I always tell my clients that,

You know,

Especially women of reproductive age,

Intermittent fasting is not great for them.

And especially if you've got adrenal fatigue and especially if you've got thyroid issues,

Intermittent fasting can be too much of a stress on your body.

So I generally tell people to fast for 12 hours,

Which means if you ate dinner at eight,

You don't eat breakfast at eight.

That's everyone should do regardless.

If you're healthy and young and you don't have an issue with or you don't have to be young.

But if you're healthy,

You don't have an issue with thyroid disease or adrenal fatigue,

You can fast longer.

But if you do,

Like,

For example,

I've got autoimmune Hashimoto's,

I don't fast more than 14 hours because otherwise my T3 starts going down.

And if you've got adrenal fatigue,

Then it's too much of a stress.

So kind of play around with the intermittent fasting and research about it.

If it's good for you or not,

You should feel very energetic if you're doing it.

If you're feeling tired and craving,

It's not good for you.

And then breakfast,

As you said,

Should not be carbs.

And so when I plan many plans for my clients,

I very much often do something called carb cycling,

Which is it's kind of a manipulation to the body.

But what we what we do is we do protein rich breakfasts to protein and fat.

So it could be something like a smoothie with greens inside and some MCT oil or something like that.

And some good quality protein.

Or it could be like a chia pudding or the eggs and avocados.

The main thing is that there's no bread,

There's no cereals,

There's no muffins or bagels or anything of the carby.

Because that's actually going to make you very fatigued.

And I'm all about like maximizing the morning and having proper brain function.

So I think if you if you if you did that,

You're already winning the day.

Right.

If you if you managed to do that.

So when should people eat their carbs?

And also there's that myth on fats like what kind of fats should people be eating to feel optimal?

Carbs should be eaten.

And again,

It's hard for me to say for everyone,

But majority of people should should be able to have a little bit of carbs at lunch.

Half a cup of cooked carbs.

And when I talk about carbs,

I speak about smart carbs.

So,

You know,

Your root vegetables,

Your pumpkin,

Your sweet potato,

Carrots,

Things like ancient grains,

Quinoa,

Brown rice,

Red rice,

Wild rice.

But less of the bready pasty type of things.

Right.

Because those are really highly processed.

So half a cup of food carbs at lunch and about a cup of carbs for dinner.

But again,

If you're an athlete or you're a child,

You might eat more.

And,

You know,

It depends on your blood sugar metabolism,

If you've got really bad blood sugar metabolism,

So forth.

And it also depends on what you're doing.

Like before this lecture,

I didn't have carbs for lunch because I wanted to be more sharp.

Now that I've studied a lot as well about the female hormone system,

I also am eating carbs according to my cycle.

So there's times in the cycle that your body needs more.

It's so interesting.

Men have testosterone peak in the morning and then they go kind of downhill with testosterone.

So they have like a 24 hour cycle.

Women follow the moon cycle.

So we have various hormones surging at various times and we follow the moon.

And actually a woman who has proper hormone health,

She actually ovulates when the moon is full.

And if you look at ancient studies on this,

It's so interesting how their bodies were so synced with the moon and how our bodies are so off track with it.

For women,

It's all about what are you eating during your cycle?

Because you shouldn't be eating the same thing all the time.

So what do you recommend for a woman or even a man if their cycles or hormonal balance is completely off?

What are the top foods that you have in your fridge,

The top five foods that you have to help reduce chronic stress and adrenal fatigue?

So when you're under stress,

Your body burns a lot more through nutrients.

I kind of give this analogy to people when I speak about stress.

Think about two cars.

One car is completely empty,

Only the driver and is driving on a flat road.

And one car is full packed with suitcases and people and animals and it's going uphill.

Which car is going to burn more fuel?

The uphill one,

Of course.

When you're under stress,

Your body burns a lot more fuel,

A lot more nutrients,

And especially magnesium,

Iron,

Zinc,

The B vitamins.

So actually when you're under stress,

It's really important to eat these types of foods.

So what are my stress combating foods?

Let me tell you.

Number one,

Dark,

Dark chocolate.

Okay,

So I'm speaking like 70% up.

Ideally vegan,

Organic,

Good quality dark chocolate.

Chocolate is coming from the cacao plant.

The seed of the cacao fruit has all 33 minerals in it.

It's like the most mineral rich food on earth.

You're talking about pure cacao,

Not just so those of you who are listening or watching.

It's not the Kit Kats and the M&Ms which have a lot of bad fats in it and high amounts of sugar.

So if you're in Australia,

There's a brand that I really like called Pana.

Have you come across it?

P-A-N-A.

I have.

It's so good.

It is good.

So that's real chocolate,

Okay?

So that's like real vegan.

That's the type of thing that you want to eat.

So chocolate is pretty incredible because it's loaded with magnesium and that's what you need when your body's under stress.

So that's food number one.

It's like my guilty pleasure.

I love to have two swerves of chocolate every afternoon.

It's my thing.

My second food is leafy greens.

Now let me tell you an interesting study coming out of the University of Tokyo.

They took two groups of people.

One group got a bowl of leafy greens every day.

So you think your spinach,

Your kale,

Your bok choy,

Your choy sum.

Any green that you want leafy,

They were eating a bowl of it every single day.

Then they compared the two groups after a month.

The people that had the bowl of leafy greens every single day,

Their brains were younger by 11 years.

How cool is that?

So you know you can juice it,

You can put it in your smoothies,

You can stir-fry it,

You can blend it.

Do whatever you want.

Just eat lots and lots and lots of leafy greens.

At least a bowl a day.

Also if you look at it from an energetic perspective,

Right?

They're getting a lot of sun,

They're getting all the nutrients from the soil.

You have to eat them when they're fresh.

So they're giving you a lot of energy as well.

So that's my second food.

Probably my third food,

And you'll see that a lot of my foods come from the plant kingdom because my whole ethos of eating is plant-based.

That means that 80% of what you eat is plants.

And so probably the third food after that would probably be green tea.

There's a lot of research coming out on green tea and how it has incredible antioxidant protective mechanisms on your body.

So even though it's got caffeine in it,

It really is a great food in terms of antioxidant capacity and what it does to your brain.

And supports you in terms of stress.

So I'm a huge green tea drinker.

Again,

I don't drink it throughout my whole cycle because it's a cold food.

When a woman bleeds,

That's when she doesn't want to have cold foods.

She wants to go for more warm foods.

You know,

Heating foods.

So again,

I play around with when I have these foods.

I don't necessarily have them all the time.

And then of course the fermented foods.

Because fermented foods,

Not only,

So we're talking like sauerkraut,

Ikka bas,

Kombucha,

Coconut yogurt.

All these foods that have been preserved.

Preserving is like cooking,

But it takes it up like 10 notches.

So a small cup of sauerkraut has the same amount of probiotics as a whole bottle of store bought probiotics.

Isn't that cool?

And it's got vitamin C,

Vitamin K.

It's got cancer protecting properties.

So there's a study coming out of the University of Harvard.

They say that women and men that eat three servings of sauerkraut a week reduce by 70% their chances of getting breast and prostate cancer.

That's amazing.

What do you say about sauerkraut when people are concerned about acidity?

I heard this from someone saying that,

Oh,

It's too acidic for me.

But that's a myth,

Isn't it?

It's not acidic at all.

It's got sodium in it because it's preserved with salt.

It's not necessarily acidic.

If they're feeling that it's hard for them,

It's repeating on them and it's creating a lot of issues,

The issue is probably the stomach.

So our body needs acidity.

The stomach should be very,

Very acidic.

If the stomach's not acidic,

Your immune system is going to be compromised.

The reason that the stomach is acidic is that all kinds of viruses and bacteria that get in your body,

They're going to be killed by that acid.

So that's why anti-acids and all these things that people take because they're acidic are not right for you.

What are some top snacks that you love?

Because I for sure have a highly fast metabolism.

So I have my favorite snacks that are like nuts and seeds.

And I integrated with some dates to have a little bit of sweetness in there.

What are your top go-to snacks?

I'm not much of a snacker.

I find that I do well with eating my meals and I'm not really hungry between meals.

And usually I like my body to kind of have a rest from eating.

But my kids are avid snackers.

They eat like no tomorrow.

So I'll tell you what my kids eat.

They love lots of fruits and veg.

I always,

Every day,

Since forever,

I've been cutting up a huge plate,

Chopped up fruits and veg.

They love dips.

I'll put like hummus out for them,

Tahini.

They love seaweed.

Sometimes I put out some edamame beans for them.

Yeah,

Nuts.

Nuts work well.

There's some really nice dark chocolate covered nuts.

Sometimes we get those.

Yeah,

It's pretty much what we snack on.

Fresh stuff.

I don't ever buy packaged stuff.

Sometimes we make our own cookies and stuff.

Mostly snacks of fruits and veg.

We didn't get to speak a lot about the gut,

But one of my tips for you,

My top tips about gut health,

Is eating lots and lots of vegetables.

So a lot of people think that gut health is all about getting a lot of probiotics into your diet or into your body.

And that's true.

You do need to get in these probiotics.

But if you don't have a favorable environment for the probiotics,

They're not going to stay there.

They're not going to make a home in your gut.

What's a favorable environment?

Fiber.

What kind of fiber do probiotics like?

The fiber from fruits and vegetables.

So I always tell my clients,

You know,

You should be thinking that you should be eating about 30,

Three zero,

Different vegetables a week.

So the variety of the fruits and vegetables that you eat is very,

Very important.

So one of the games that we play once in a while is like,

Have we eaten 30 different vegetables this week?

We're counting cucumbers,

Tomatoes,

Celery,

And that we've gone through it.

But that's a very good way to get a favorable environment to have good gut health.

I have one last question about gut health,

About supplements.

What's your take on supplements?

Because there are some people that say you must supplement because a lot of our food is nutrient poor because of the soil it's grown in.

And then there are people that are saying,

Well,

We want to minimize the supplements and eat as much food that is natural.

But how do we get the right nutrients if a lot of the food,

Even organic food,

Is coming from nutrient poor soil?

Brilliant debate.

I can say that I'm very,

Very personalized.

I look at people's blood tests and I'll say,

OK,

You're deficient in vitamin D.

You should take a vitamin D supplement and this is how much you should take for six months and then we'll retest.

So I'm very much about like finding where you're deficient and supplementing accordingly rather than just blanket supplementing.

I'm increasingly concerned with the quality of the supplements on the market.

A lot of them are testing for heavy metals,

All kinds of binders.

So you really need to know your way around supplement companies and know what's a good brand and what's not a good brand.

Let me give you a tip.

Anything that you buy in a pharmacy is not a good brand.

You want to buy these things that are practitioner range,

That are a little bit harder to get hold of.

Librazonal,

Anything that's librazonal that you can actually spray into.

So a lot of people actually not digesting supplements.

We call them expensive urine because they're just going through a system.

A lot of my supplements now are you spread and you put it under your tongue and it actually gets absorbed through the mouth or I spray into the nose.

And sometimes now I've got some supplements that are suppositories.

So they go up your bum and actually there it gets absorbed much better and goes straight into the bloodstream.

I would say supplements need to be personalized.

They need to be of the utmost best quality.

You better take the best quality or not take it all because some of them can be actually quite dangerous.

That's really good advice.

And I think it for sure needs a very professional eye like yourself to kind of look into that,

To make sure that people are taking things that are individualized for what they need and their particular deficiencies.

So Corinne actually has a course if you want to learn more about gut health.

It's called No Guts,

No Glory.

Awesome name by the way.

And it's all on her website at nutritiousanddelicious.

Com.

That's the word nutritious,

The letter N,

Delicious.

Com.

And there's a bunch of free handouts that she actually has on her site that go from natural eczema treatments to constipation,

The best calcium foods.

And she's also got a few books out there as well and some lovely recipes on her website.

She's got a whole book about detox nutrition,

Adrenal fatigue.

She's got comprehensive weight loss plans,

A lot of stuff in there.

And of course,

You can always follow Corinne on her Instagram.

You can't forget it.

It's Corinne Goji Berry.

I think that's your favorite fruit,

Right?

Or food.

One of them.

One of them.

Right.

Goji berries are really high in antioxidants.

So why not Corinne Goji Berry on Instagram.

And she's always coming up with really inspiring and interesting posts.

So feel free to stay connected with Corinne there.

And if you have any questions that are more particular to you,

Feel free to reach out to her through her website.

And I'm sure she'll be happy to respond to you.

Are there any last words of wisdom or insight that you'd like to leave the listeners with?

You know,

I just want people to listen to their bodies.

If everybody just treated themselves with a little bit of kindness.

And if you're a parent,

Observe your child.

It's just so interesting how the body just tells you what you need.

And it's a matter of just listening.

And even as parents,

Our children's bodies tell us what they need.

And we just need to listen and we need to take back the power of our health to ourselves.

And you do this by learning,

Continuing your education,

By being exposed to people that can teach you how to do this.

And it's great.

It's so empowering to to know that you can help yourself be healthy.

Well,

Thank you so much for your wisdom and your insight and your passion for wellness.

I love talking to you.

Thanks so much for your time.

Thank you,

My dear.

I'll talk to you soon.

Bye.