Episode 93
Chelsie Ward:
The Surprising Connection Between Gut Health and Autoimmunity
In this episode, I am joined by RN Chelsie Ward to discuss gut health. Chelsie shares her journey and offers advice on using food as medicine. We explore the impact of processed foods on inflammation and the benefits of a whole foods diet and organic herbs. We talk about low stomach acid and its effects on digestion, providing natural remedies.
First Aired on: Jun 26, 2023
Episode 93
Chelsie Ward:
The Surprising Connection Between Gut Health and Autoimmunity
In this episode, I am joined by RN Chelsie Ward to discuss gut health. Chelsie shares her journey and offers advice on using food as medicine. We explore the impact of processed foods on inflammation and the benefits of a whole foods diet and organic herbs. We talk about low stomach acid and its effects on digestion, providing natural remedies.
First Aired on: Jun 26, 2023
Table of Contents:
In this episode:
In this episode, I had the pleasure of chatting with Chelsie Ward, a registered nurse and FDN practitioner, who shared her journey of healing her gut and improving her overall health naturally.
Here are some of this episode's highlights:
- Chelsie emphasized the importance of using food as medicine and the benefits of a whole foods diet consisting of meat, fruits, and vegetables.
- We also discussed the harmful effects of processed foods, especially those that are gluten-free but still inflammatory due to cross-contamination and the use of wheat and pesticides.
- We explored the benefits of using herbs such as garlic, oregano, basil, and thyme in cooking and as essential oils to alleviate immediate symptoms like brain fog and digestive upset.
- Chelsie stressed the importance of using organic herbs and spices and growing your own herbs in a pot.
- We also discussed the relationship between low stomach acid and heartburn, indigestion, and reflux disease, and provided tips on how to support and improve it naturally.
- Chelsie emphasized the importance of practicing gratitude throughout the day, expressing gratitude for simple things like the sun, nature, and animals, and taking a moment to appreciate healthy food before meals.
Other Resources:
Connect with Chelsie Ward
Episode Transcript
Julie Michelson: [Page//00:00:00] Welcome back to The Inspired Living with Autoimmunity podcast. I'm your host, Julie Michelson, and today we are joined by Chelsie Ward, registered nurse, F D n practitioner, spiritual healer, and author of Healed His Way, and we're talking about how you can heal your gut to heal your health.
Chelsie shares her tips to truly use food as medicine in a way that is simple and fun and will get you on the [Page//00:01:00] road to feeling better.
Chelsie, welcome to the podcast.
Chelsie Ward: Thank you so much, Julie. I appreciate you having me.
Julie Michelson: I am thrilled that you're here and I'm really looking forward to our conversation. I love to start with story cuz most of us, you know, didn't dream of joining the functional medicine movement when we were kids. So share with listeners a bit of your journey.
Chelsie Ward: Definitely not a, a dream as a child, I'll tell you that. So, I remember my grandmother looked at me one day and she was like, child, you get everything that comes down this family line. And I didn't really know what she was talking about at that time really. But I was born with digestive issues. I was born with colic and that was kind of what started me out, you know, from a digestive standpoint.
And I was sure to get suppositories and all those things on a regular basis by my grandmother who thought it was so important for me to poop on a regular [Page//00:02:00] basis. And you know, we lived on gardening and you know, we had a garden. We had all the right things so many times, but I think just busy life of parents and being introduced to a lot of the sugary foods and junk foods that I was introduced to as a child.
I kind of became a junk food junkie and I suffered with digestive issues and hormone imbalances pretty much my whole life. At the age of 11 I started my menstrual cycle by age 12. Debilitating cycles that would keep me home on a regular basis from school. And I was put on birth control by age 12.
And so a life of medications, you know, and with birth control there's so many symptoms. You know, we can have anxiety, depression, mood swings, like all the things, and we think there's something wrong with us. A d D type tendencies, all those things. And really it's side effects of the birth control. And so much of my life, I lived in kind of this world of side [Page//00:03:00] effects, not realizing that it was medications or just chronic digestive issues, we never really got to the root of as a child that led to all these other imbalances later in life.
So by the time I was 27 years old, of course it was birth control induced. I went into early. Perimenopause at age 27 stopped cycling and I'd already started studying as a nurse. You know, I, I was kind of like diving into that world of traditional health and, you know, really seeing that a lot of the things I was going through, Were very similar to my patients.
And I was thinking at that point, like there has to be a better answer than just traditional like approaches like is medication and surgery, like really what I have to look forward to for the rest of my life? And I couldn't help but say that's not the right answer. So I really started diving into, I. The world of functional medicine.
At that time, I didn't really know, but I was just looking for [Page//00:04:00] something to put a fire out and I started learning how food was medicine, how our bodies were actually created to heal themselves. So I went on a mission to heal myself, and I did that, came off of birth control. All the medications that I was on healed my immune system, and I'm 41 now.
I'm cycling regularly. Came out of, I'm not saying that it's possible for all women to come out of perimenopause. Don't hear me wrong, of course. But the thing is, is if we give our body what it needs, then it's gonna give us what we want in return, and we can optimize our state of health just by living out some natural, healthy healing practices on a regular basis.
So, That's why I love this world so much and what brought me into it. So I put my story in a book and kind of the rest is history. A lot of other people I found out really needed this work and so it became a passion of mine to be able to share the tools and resources that I learned in my own health so that others [Page//00:05:00] could find healing in their life as well.
Julie Michelson: Which is so amazing, and I, I definitely understand the passion, the fire that gets ignited when we heal from stuff that we were originally told we could never heal from. So I'm, I want to, I'm thrilled that you're cycling and, and. I love sharing these stories. I think listeners that it's probably one of their favorite parts of, of the podcast because I, I don't know what, we can't heal, you know, I mean obviously there are injured, there are things we can't heal from, but I love the guests share their journeys and it's like, oh, and there's something else somebody healed and, and you know, you are.
Such an expert in gut health and, and we know, and listeners know, so we're, we're not gonna really just [Page//00:06:00] pound on, you know, we know the gut is connected to autoimmunity. But I do wanna explore, you know, what we can do. To help that gut heal. And, and I'm gonna just let you take it. I know there's a, there's a lot, a lot there.
So whatever piece of it you wanna share with listeners because I think that's a huge part of everybody's journey is, and even people without autoimmunity, you know, how do we heal the gut? Like really heal the gut.
Chelsie Ward: Yeah, so important and there's so many different directions you can take it. Like you said, it's just, you know. We know that the gut is kind of that window to disease, and so how do we really take that system and just love and nurture it? That's really the way I like to look at it, you know? And I think so many times where we can mess up is we start saying, what kind of pill can I put in?
What kind of [Page//00:07:00] medication can I put in? What kind of thing can I do? And we get into this doom mentality instead of B mentality. So I really like to take a step back and really start with a less, less is best approach, and using food as medicine using anti-inflammatory types of protocols to just let the system rest.
I think where so many people mess up is we start to go on this whole food plan or we, we start to say, oh, I should eat organic, or, oh, I should do these things with my nutrition. Or, you know we hear these things are healthy. Maybe it's keto, maybe it's paleo, maybe it's all these different types of diets we hear they're healthy, so we think, oh, I need to try this.
And really, I think it really just goes back to nature. You know, nature is healing. Like everything that we need is found in nature. So whether that be herbs or [Page//00:08:00] food or anything like that, it's all created for us to access. And once we have the right tools, then we can begin to heal. So if we just put in good, healthy, whole food nutrition, Meats, fruits, vegetables as the foundation, and then kind of build on top of that.
Then I think we can take our health a long way. We start consuming a lot of those inflammatory foods like the breads and the pastas and the chips, and even when we go toward these paleo or these keto type plans. Really those plans are intended to bring more whole foods into our life. They're intended to bring, like push out some of the processed foods, but I think what we, what we do is we end up swapping one for the other.
Oh, I'm not supposed to have gluten, so let me have this gluten free bread.
Julie Michelson: Which is worse, I think. Yeah.
Chelsie Ward: Yes. And I just talked to a client just the other day and she was like, oh, Chelsie, I tried to go gluten-free, but it didn't work. It [Page//00:09:00] actually made me feel worse. And I'm like, okay, well let's talk through this, you know?
And to come to find out she's eating a lot of gluten-free foods. Processed foods. Exactly. So, and she's like, those gluten-free foods just made me super inflamed. Well, one, there's cross-contamination. So there's almost always gluten in these processed foods. They use a lot of the same like equipment to manufacture these products.
They're still, they still contain wheat. They still contain all the pesticides and herbicides that we're spraying on our foods. They contain high amounts of grains, and what happens is because we think we're eating healthier, then we're, we have a tendency to consume a lot more of those foods. It's like, you know, It's like you're just, your body's just wanting them.
They're craving them. It's like, oh, now I'm eating a healthier bread, or I'm eating a healthier protein bar, or a healthier cookie. It's keto, so it must be okay. And,
Julie Michelson: the whole [Page//00:10:00] box. Yeah.
Chelsie Ward: So we do, we, so we sit down and consume the whole box. So it's, you know, it just becomes more inflammatory for our systems.
So, going back to the Whole Foods. Introducing those more, like I said in the in the early part, meat, fruit, vegetables, kind of as that foundation is what I see to be one of the most healing food plans that there is. And then once we've done that, we've actually eliminated a lot of things that could be causing symptoms, right?
So we've rested the gut a little bit. We've allowed it space to heal. We have stopped working our digestive system so hard. So we've kind of calmed that whole system down. Our immune system's kind of like, okay, I'm, I'm liking this picture a little bit better. You know, we're going into a state of rest and we can really start to heal.
So if we do that and we're removing those inflammatory foods, maybe we're taking [Page//00:11:00] supplements at the same time to decrease inflammation. Things like proteolytic enzymes or fish oil or different things like that just to work on that inflammatory response, just to kind of nurture that a little bit more can be super helpful.
Even certain supplements to detox can be helpful during this phase, you know, just to really open up drainage. So, Because we are exposed to so many toxins on a regular basis. I mean, this is just not only in our food, we're getting sprayed with herbicides and pesticides, right? But we're putting toxic skincare on.
We are cleaning our homes with toxic things. We have carpets and furniture that are off gassing all the time. We are under smog, you know, in this toxic environment we live in, especially if we live in a big city and we're constantly being exposed. And the latest number I heard was we're exposed to over two pounds of toxins every single day that our bodies have to [Page//00:12:00] process.
And I just have to believe that our bodies were not intended to have to process all those things. Man makes those things, but those aren't, they're not just a natural part of the world that, you know, was there at the time of creation, and now we're having to figure out how to process a lot of these toxins that we made,
Julie Michelson: we haven't evolved fast enough for that, for sure. And, and. Again, not to be doom and gloom, cuz we both know we can take steps to, to protect ourselves and reduce that burden. I was, I gave a talk yesterday on pfas the, what they call now, the Forever Chemicals. And they, they had a literature review last year.
It was 40 studies, I believe, around the world, and over 30,000 samples of cord blood. Every single one had pfas in it. And so this is real, [Page//00:13:00] like we need to take the steps where we can, obviously we can't live in a bubble, but that it's such a huge piece of, you know, this chronic illness. Just crazy going on right now.
I really believe.
Chelsie Ward: yeah.
Julie Michelson: yeah, it's, it's huge. You mentioned herbs as a, a component of this real food to, to help heal the gut and reduce inflammation. Can we dig into that a little bit?
Chelsie Ward: Yeah, you know, I think we think about herbs like taking those in the form of a supplement and we think it's like, okay, well if I'm not gonna use a medication that maybe I need to use, like high doses of oregano or you know, just different types of healing herbs. And all those things are fine, like when we're on a healing protocol.
Of course, bringing those things in is great and honestly it's kind of a means to an end, but we can improve the health of our immune [Page//00:14:00] system every single day just by using those a part as a part of our daily regimen. So some really amazing healing herbs are things like garlic, you know, as long as you don't have severe sibo, those types of things.
Garlic can kind of upset your stomach if you have some of those like. More intense like processes that need to be healed a little bit more, but they, garlic can actually be really healing. It can prevent infections like h pylori. We can use things like oregano and just in our food, basil, thyme. Some of these things are actually used in a lot of these.
Supplements to help you heal your gut. They're of course given in higher doses, but if our body is getting these things on just a slow controlled basis, number one, it makes our food so much better. You know you're gonna enjoy your food. Your palate is gonna shift in your mouth. You're not gonna be searching for.
The sweets or the [Page//00:15:00] processed foods, or a lot of those other foods that you found so much love for Because let's face it, these marketing companies know exactly what to do to come after our taste buds. So if we can replace that with tastier meals and instead of making a stir fry that just has chicken and you know, broccoli and you know, just.
N nothing in there, no flavor. We can add these herbs and spices and they have natural anti-inflammatory effects. They have natural antimicrobial effects. They have healing properties that are just really gonna help decrease inflammation in the body. You can use these in the form of food, just like seasonings and spices.
You can also use them in the form of essential oils. You know, so that's another thing that I really love. It's like, you know, those things can be helpful for. To me, it's those just immediate symptoms that come on that [Page//00:16:00] you're just like, oh, I feel like I'm having some sort of flare today. Like I'm just not really feeling myself.
Maybe my brain's not on point. Today I'm having a little bit of brain fog using something like Wild Orange Essential oil. You know, just kind of like putting a couple drops in your hands, rubbing 'em together, putting it on your neck. Your dete and even your wrist can be super helpful for just like getting your energy flowing a little bit, getting your brain moving, even peppermint, you know, using peppermint, like sucking on a peppermint or like a peppermint lozenge or a peppermint essential oil that you can get going.
A another thing is things like fennel, fennel tea. Those are really great for digestive upset. So if you have bloating or if you have gas or if you have some sort of other digestive issue going on, they make teas that have coriander. Fennel, those types of things that are really [Page//00:17:00] beneficial for just your digestive system as a whole.
So it's not only just putting 'em on your food, you can have the herbal teas around. You can have a lot of different things in the arsenal just to kind of make sure that you're covered. And a lot of this is gonna depend on your symptoms. So maybe chamomile is good for sleep, you know? So just having a few things in your arsenal to support you, and teas and seasons and spices are a really good way to go to do that as well.
Julie Michelson: That's such amazing advice for people that aren't already cooking with herbs. Do they have to be fresh? Can they be dry? Do you have any like tips and tricks for just learning to start to play with them?
Chelsie Ward: I really like to think about cuisines that you really enjoy, and to me that's so easy sometimes cuz it's like, Some people are coming from like, I like spaghetti, or I like the Italian type seasonings. Or some other people may like, like Mexican type dishes. [Page//00:18:00] And finding a seasonal blend that can be just like, okay, here's my taco blend.
I'm gonna use that on fajitas and I'm gonna use that on taco salad, or I'm gonna use that on more Mexican style dishes. You'll kind of start to pick up those flavors. So one of the big flavors in say, Mexican type seasonings is cumin. So then you kinda, you learn to pick out those flavors and then you might buy some cumin on the side, or you smell it and you kind of get used to it and you really understand how that's gonna mix with maybe pento beans.
Like it's, it makes a great addition to pinto beans, you know, so you might learn to use that in one dish as a season along. So, The same with like Italian seasonings, you know, Italian has marum, it has oregano, it has a lot of different of your greens, like the green leafy I guess roots and things like that.
[Page//00:19:00] Yes. So those are really like, I would say the biggest thing to really consider here is make sure that they're organic. So, Because you're getting, you're getting, you're getting a lot of bang for your buck when it comes to these herbs and spices. So if you've never seen spices or grains or anything grown in a field, if you haven't seen these big airplanes come over and literally just saturate them with chemicals, I encourage you just, I mean, do a quick Google search and you're gonna see it.
It's very scary. Everything that's touch, like every component of that plant is being touched with herbicides, pesticides, I mean, completely saturated. Here's the thing, these seeds are many times genetically modified. These seeds are many times already sprayed. We can't change the plant after the seed has already destroyed the entire, the [Page//00:20:00] entire plant.
So getting organic is super, super important just because. Your body knows what to do with it. When we start putting something genetically modified, or we start putting these herbicides and pesticides, we are gonna start to see things like leaky gut. We get holes poked in our intestinal lining. We have proteins spilling into circulation where they don't belong.
This is when that immune response happens, right? So if you already have one autoimmune condition, you create this leaky gut system. And these additional proteins are spilling into circulation. This is one way that other autoimmune conditions are usually coming into play, and it's like one will lead to another, lead to another, lead to another.
And you think you're a mess. You're not a mess. It's just that your system has now, like you've created the environment inside for these things to replicate very quickly. [Page//00:21:00] So the organic is so super important. Just it's, it's one little thing that we can do to kind of like, put on the brakes a little bit when it comes to the, the fire.
Julie Michelson: I love that. And, and the herbs are so nutrient dense. For people that are trying to work on increasing, you know, their, their nutrient density and their veggie intake, a little bit of herb a little bit, you know, a clove of garlic is like a serving of vegetables. It's, it's really amazing. I wanna add also, I'd like to thank all of the organic blends would just be what you think you're getting, but this is another place you have to read your labels.
So often they're putting sugar in these, these blends. I went to a this fancy spice store and I bought a gift for somebody without reading. The back and then before I gifted it, I read it and it had sugar. I tossed it out. And it wasn't a sweet, it was an herbal [Page//00:22:00] blend. It shouldn't have had sugar in it.
So it's still read your labels for sure. And herbs are so fun to grow. Like, even if you're not a gardener it's, it's just a great, you can grow them in a pot. I know. It's just fun.
Chelsie Ward: Yeah, jump on Amazon. Grab like a little herb grower in your, and put it in your windowsill. It's so cute. And you can snip those fresh herbs if you've never had fresh herbs. Oh, it makes a world of difference in your dishes. It's like night and day and you know, and here's how you ex, here's how I explain it.
So you know how you have an Italian dish and you make the sauce and it's like always better the next day, you know, because the flavors have time to marry and all that. It's like you're getting that on day one when you're using fresh herbs. It's like, it's like they're already just like so flavorful and robust whenever they're fresh.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. And they just, they, even when you're [Page//00:23:00] not cooking with them, they smell so good. I can't wait for my herbs to, to, to explode. We just planted the garden last week though, so we have to be a little patient.
Chelsie Ward: Yes, yes. I did the same. I'm like, okay, I am waiting and I go out there every day and I'm talking to my vegetables and I'm like, you know, loving on 'em and it's so much fun.
Julie Michelson: It's, it's the best and it, it, it really has become addictive. People say all the time, well, I don't know how to garden. I'm like, I don't know how to garden. And we don't buy produce pretty much all summer. I mean, we have enough. It, it's incredible. And every year we just add, it's like, oh, well we haven't grown.
Last year we grew butternut squash for the first time, and now it's always gonna be one of the, the summer staples. You know, we, and we're, we're, we ate it all. Winter it holds. So it, it can, it can get you hooked for sure.
Chelsie Ward: And it's a learning curve. Just like everything, you know, it's like I, I messed up, like the first year I had like tons of tomatoes and peppers and they were [Page//00:24:00] flourishing. And I'm like, what? What's wrong with my squashing zucchini? You know? And I've moved, you know, to different areas and like, if you're moving and you're in a different area, different climate, like things need, you know, different amounts of water, they need different amounts of sunshine, you know, just.
So play with it. Plant one or two things, and don't get frustrated with the process. It's, it can be a lot of fun if you start doing it
Julie Michelson: It is. It, it definitely is. And yeah, I joke, I, my stuff grows in spite of me. Really. It's like survival of the fittest in my garden. And we've now added the, like the squash, some of the stuff we grew last year it was not even in the garden. I just put it. In the beds around the house and it, it was happy.
And we have terrible soil, so it, it really is easier than you think.
Chelsie Ward: Oh yeah. Things wanna grow. They wanna live and thrive.
Julie Michelson: What are some tips for listeners? So that's the food, you know, anti-inflammatory, healing [Page//00:25:00] foods. Whole foods. Real foods. The herbs are so incredible. What are some other things that that listeners can do to aid digestion? Just to help you digest your food better?
Chelsie Ward: One of the things that I see is very common is low stomach acid. So it is so important for us to kind of support just acid. And the reason being is because if we have low stomach acid, we're actually creating an environment that, number one, we don't digest our food well, so we don't absorb our nutrients.
We don't break those down as well. So if you have, maybe you're passing food in your stool, that's a really a big sign that you have low stomach acid. A lot of my clients even say, Hey, my, my poop is the same color as the food I ate. And I'm like, that is not good. That means that you have low stomach acid.
Now, I mean, if you eat a ton of beets, that that might be, you know, a different story, but you know, for [Page//00:26:00] the most part, you shouldn't eat. Greens, and then it'd be green and you shouldn't eat peppers, and then it'd be red, you know? So different things like that. So if you're seeing that, then we really wanna work on that.
Stomach acid.
Julie Michelson: And I'm gonna throw in another such a common Symptom of low stomach acid is so count. You know, this is one of those cases where functional medicine has a just a 180 approach from traditional western medicine, but low stomach acid causes heartburn and reflux
Chelsie Ward: Yeah,
Julie Michelson: you're not getting that signal and, and can cause constipation too.
So So, so what do we do since it is such a common thing what, what do we do to support that?
Chelsie Ward: So what I love to use is bitter greens. So anything like, just think of, you know, greens that you're gonna. Grow, like you can do collared greens, you can do mustard, you can do dandelion, you [Page//00:27:00] can do any type of like leafy green vegetable, so the more bitter, the better. Even things like hale, they're really super beneficial for just helping you improve that system.
The other thing is citrus, but citrus fruits. And what I love about citrus is that you can really pair it with anything. You can put it on a salad. You can have it as a side in the morning with your breakfast. You can. Have it as a dessert for dinner. It goes with anything. So grapefruit is one of the best for actually helping improve the stomach acid.
You can have a warm glass of lemon water in the morning. That'll kind of help perk up the liver and just tell it to wake up and start that digestive process. And another thing I like to do is apple cider vinegar. So some people like to take it before meals. You might just put a couple teaspoons and a glass of water and drink it down maybe 30 minutes before a meal to kind of help that digestive process.
But you can also add it to your foods [Page//00:28:00] so you can make dressings with it for salads. Sometimes I'll just do like a bed of greens. Put a few warm vegetables on there and then, you know, I'm making a salad. Yes. But it's got that, it's got the cold greens. It's got the warm vegetables, and then I'll top it with some chicken and I put a dressing on there, but I'm really topping that with the apple cider vinegar to give it that punch, but also to help with the digestive process.
So if you're eating greens and you're eating these colorful vegetables, if you'll start with those first. So start your meal fresh fiber first kind of like guideline. Then you're gonna notice that you start to really break down your food a lot better, and it's because these foods have natural digestive enzymes in them, and they'll help you produce more of that, those enzymes release more of the enzymes in your mouth, help you improve your stomach acid so that you can better digest everything else as it comes in that protein that feels really heavy in your [Page//00:29:00] stomach.
It usually happens not because you're reacting to protein or red meat or anything like that, but it's really because you don't have the stomach acid to break it down and it's sitting in there like a brick because it needs the extra enzymes and that acid to really break it down.
Julie Michelson: That is amazing gold and, and almost everybody I work with, if not everybody needs support with enzymes and stomach acid and just getting things totally reset. So I, I love those tips. Again, it's just stuff you can incorporate in your meals, which is fantastic, but you can't get it in a box.
Chelsie Ward: Right. Yeah, it's so true. It's, you know, one supplement that I may use for people, like with the digestive enzyme, something with be attain hcl can be beneficial. You really have to be careful because sometimes our stomach lining can be so irritated from stress from, again, those herbicides and pesticides from [Page//00:30:00] just breakdown and the little cilia.
That are lining your gut, they are actually responsible for absorbing the nutrients. And when we have leaky gut, when we have stomach breakdown, when we have chronically low stomach acid, those cilia actually start to break down and think of it like just kind of like a raw wound sometimes. So if we start putting acid in a little too fast without strengthening that stomach lining, A lot of times we can feel burning, we can feel irritation and and things like that.
And we think, and that's when we think, oh no, I have high stomach acid. And people will say, no, my stomach acid's not low. It's really high. And I'm like, well, your body is actually producing that in a very quick amount. Very fast every time you put food in, because it's like, oh no, something's coming in.
I've gotta produce enough acid to break it down because, yeah, because the stomach acid is chronically low, and that's the reason that happens again, and that's what causes the heartburn [Page//00:31:00] and the indigestion and the reflux disease as well.
Julie Michelson: I love that. And, and to top off, you mentioned it you know, chewing your food, right? You mentioned the enzymes that get in in our mouth. I mean, just chewing really well in and. You know, mindful eating all, all of the things, right? Getting out of that stress response before you start to eat is just, it's like magic.
So,
Chelsie Ward: Yeah. We are in such a fast paced go go mentality, and this is just. You know, we're on the run, we're grabbing a fast food burger, we're grabbing a fast meal. It's like, how can we get the quickest thing in possible and if we will just slow down long enough to chew our food, digestion begins in the mouth.
So if we chew our food, break it down. I like to say to the consistency of salsa, so maybe not the real chunky salsa, but you know
Julie Michelson: My grandfather used to [Page//00:32:00] always say he was a chewer. He was, he said, you know, chew until you don't even need to swallow, is what he used to say.
Chelsie Ward: just let it absorb.
Julie Michelson: Yeah.
Chelsie Ward: That's so good. It's good because we don't slow down enough. We don't even breathe. It's like, I remember sitting at a, like a little subway bar. It was in Philadelphia, and this guy hands me a sub and I ate it. And he was like, did you even chew that? And I was like, I was so embarrassed.
And then I was realizing, oh my gosh, this is how I live my life. You know, I'm on a vacation and I should be enjoying this sub, you know, that he's put in front of me this Philly sandwich and Philly. And I didn't even get to enjoy it because I was so busy, just like being in my rushed mindset and we're just so guilty of not taking the time to slow down to even taste our food.
Julie Michelson: that's such a, such a great reminder. So you've already given us this gigantic list of things people can start incorporating and doing, but [Page//00:33:00] this is the point of the interview where I put you on the spot. I ask you to just give listeners one step. If they do one thing after listening to this episode, something they can start today to improve their health.
Chelsie Ward: It's gonna be unconventional
Julie Michelson: Yay. Good. Love it.
Chelsie Ward: And after illness and after burnout and after illness again. And just, you know, going through my own health journey, watching other people go through their health journey, I've started to connect a really big dot, and that is really embracing the slowdown. And this is huge because so many times we are like, I'm gonna do the yoga because like I, I know that it's, it's my way of slowing down and I'm gonna heal from this, and then I'm gonna take these pills and that's my way to heal my physical [Page//00:34:00] body.
And then I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this meditation because that's gonna heal my mindset. And we start to do all these things and we're just like forcing health. And what happens is we're in that yoga class. Yes. But we're not really in the yoga class. We are checking it exactly. We're checking it off the list.
So one tip that I'm gonna leave you with is start your daily health practice with gratitude. It doesn't matter what it is, you know, it can be like, I don't really feel like taking a walk in the morning, but I know I need that sunshine and the sun on my skin and to reset the circadian rhythm. So getting out in the sunlight can be as simple as.
Like if we are grateful for that, for the sun and the ability to move our body and just expressing gratitude and thankfulness for the birds that are singing to us on our adventure [Page//00:35:00] and really taking in the beauty of the sky, the green around us. Maybe we see a deer in the distance. I don't know what you have around you when you're taking your morning walk.
But if we can begin to express that gratitude, if we can sit down for five seconds, not even five minutes, five seconds, and take a few deep cleansing breaths before our meal. Make the decision to celebrate the fact that we're having a healthy meal. We're choosing a healthy meal. Express gratitude for the animal that may have provided its life for us.
Gratitude that we have amazing food on our plate. Gratitude for having the knowledge and understanding that food is healing. And just trusting and believing and having faith that as we do those things, that that food is really gonna come in. It's gonna nourish ourselves. It's gonna nourish everything inside of our body in a way that we can begin to heal.
I [Page//00:36:00] think this will take us so far, it's, it's really just finding the gratitude in everything. Some people might find that journaling is very easy, a easy way to express that, like writing down the things. Me, I just like to voice it. I just like to say I'm so grateful for, you know, and as I'm on my morning walk, I'm, I'm doing that.
I've started a gratitude jar before and every time something great happens in the day, just go to your jar, write down that wonderful thing that happened and like, just watch that paper. Just stack up over time and it watch your jar feel. Because I think so many times we can be so focused on our healing journey.
We're like, oh, we gotta do the one more thing. Oh, the one more step. And am I gonna deal with this inflammation and this autoimmune condition and this process for the rest of my life? But if we can remember and we can look at that little jar and we can see those little papers stacking up every single day, we can be [Page//00:37:00] so reminded that we are doing really good on our journey.
Julie Michelson: I love that. And it is a journey.
Chelsie Ward: it is
Julie Michelson: amazing. And I, I love that. I, I'm like, is, is gratitude unconventional? I mean, I guess conventional. Conventional. Not on this show. It's not. But I, I
Chelsie Ward: your vegetables.
Julie Michelson: I love it. I love it. Before we wrap up, for people that are listening on the go, where's the best place to find you?
Chelsie Ward: So I am, I'm pretty much all over social media. Chelsie Ward Wellness, and it's c h e l s i e w a r D. I'm at Chelsie ward.com and I'm on Instagram, Facebook, you know, it's very easy. My book has healed his way. It's on my website, it's on Amazon. So just do a quick Google search. You should be able to find me.
Julie Michelson: Amazing. Chelsie, thank you so much. You have shared incredible nuggets with us today.
Chelsie Ward: Thank you so much for having me, Julie. [Page//00:38:00] It's been my pleasure.
Julie Michelson: For everyone listening remember, you can get the show notes and transcripts by visiting Inspiredliving.show. I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did. See you next week. [Page//00:39:00]
Chelsie shares her tips to truly use food as medicine in a way that is simple and fun and will get you on the [Page//00:01:00] road to feeling better.
Chelsie, welcome to the podcast.
Chelsie Ward: Thank you so much, Julie. I appreciate you having me.
Julie Michelson: I am thrilled that you're here and I'm really looking forward to our conversation. I love to start with story cuz most of us, you know, didn't dream of joining the functional medicine movement when we were kids. So share with listeners a bit of your journey.
Chelsie Ward: Definitely not a, a dream as a child, I'll tell you that. So, I remember my grandmother looked at me one day and she was like, child, you get everything that comes down this family line. And I didn't really know what she was talking about at that time really. But I was born with digestive issues. I was born with colic and that was kind of what started me out, you know, from a digestive standpoint.
And I was sure to get suppositories and all those things on a regular basis by my grandmother who thought it was so important for me to poop on a regular [Page//00:02:00] basis. And you know, we lived on gardening and you know, we had a garden. We had all the right things so many times, but I think just busy life of parents and being introduced to a lot of the sugary foods and junk foods that I was introduced to as a child.
I kind of became a junk food junkie and I suffered with digestive issues and hormone imbalances pretty much my whole life. At the age of 11 I started my menstrual cycle by age 12. Debilitating cycles that would keep me home on a regular basis from school. And I was put on birth control by age 12.
And so a life of medications, you know, and with birth control there's so many symptoms. You know, we can have anxiety, depression, mood swings, like all the things, and we think there's something wrong with us. A d D type tendencies, all those things. And really it's side effects of the birth control. And so much of my life, I lived in kind of this world of side [Page//00:03:00] effects, not realizing that it was medications or just chronic digestive issues, we never really got to the root of as a child that led to all these other imbalances later in life.
So by the time I was 27 years old, of course it was birth control induced. I went into early. Perimenopause at age 27 stopped cycling and I'd already started studying as a nurse. You know, I, I was kind of like diving into that world of traditional health and, you know, really seeing that a lot of the things I was going through, Were very similar to my patients.
And I was thinking at that point, like there has to be a better answer than just traditional like approaches like is medication and surgery, like really what I have to look forward to for the rest of my life? And I couldn't help but say that's not the right answer. So I really started diving into, I. The world of functional medicine.
At that time, I didn't really know, but I was just looking for [Page//00:04:00] something to put a fire out and I started learning how food was medicine, how our bodies were actually created to heal themselves. So I went on a mission to heal myself, and I did that, came off of birth control. All the medications that I was on healed my immune system, and I'm 41 now.
I'm cycling regularly. Came out of, I'm not saying that it's possible for all women to come out of perimenopause. Don't hear me wrong, of course. But the thing is, is if we give our body what it needs, then it's gonna give us what we want in return, and we can optimize our state of health just by living out some natural, healthy healing practices on a regular basis.
So, That's why I love this world so much and what brought me into it. So I put my story in a book and kind of the rest is history. A lot of other people I found out really needed this work and so it became a passion of mine to be able to share the tools and resources that I learned in my own health so that others [Page//00:05:00] could find healing in their life as well.
Julie Michelson: Which is so amazing, and I, I definitely understand the passion, the fire that gets ignited when we heal from stuff that we were originally told we could never heal from. So I'm, I want to, I'm thrilled that you're cycling and, and. I love sharing these stories. I think listeners that it's probably one of their favorite parts of, of the podcast because I, I don't know what, we can't heal, you know, I mean obviously there are injured, there are things we can't heal from, but I love the guests share their journeys and it's like, oh, and there's something else somebody healed and, and you know, you are.
Such an expert in gut health and, and we know, and listeners know, so we're, we're not gonna really just [Page//00:06:00] pound on, you know, we know the gut is connected to autoimmunity. But I do wanna explore, you know, what we can do. To help that gut heal. And, and I'm gonna just let you take it. I know there's a, there's a lot, a lot there.
So whatever piece of it you wanna share with listeners because I think that's a huge part of everybody's journey is, and even people without autoimmunity, you know, how do we heal the gut? Like really heal the gut.
Chelsie Ward: Yeah, so important and there's so many different directions you can take it. Like you said, it's just, you know. We know that the gut is kind of that window to disease, and so how do we really take that system and just love and nurture it? That's really the way I like to look at it, you know? And I think so many times where we can mess up is we start saying, what kind of pill can I put in?
What kind of [Page//00:07:00] medication can I put in? What kind of thing can I do? And we get into this doom mentality instead of B mentality. So I really like to take a step back and really start with a less, less is best approach, and using food as medicine using anti-inflammatory types of protocols to just let the system rest.
I think where so many people mess up is we start to go on this whole food plan or we, we start to say, oh, I should eat organic, or, oh, I should do these things with my nutrition. Or, you know we hear these things are healthy. Maybe it's keto, maybe it's paleo, maybe it's all these different types of diets we hear they're healthy, so we think, oh, I need to try this.
And really, I think it really just goes back to nature. You know, nature is healing. Like everything that we need is found in nature. So whether that be herbs or [Page//00:08:00] food or anything like that, it's all created for us to access. And once we have the right tools, then we can begin to heal. So if we just put in good, healthy, whole food nutrition, Meats, fruits, vegetables as the foundation, and then kind of build on top of that.
Then I think we can take our health a long way. We start consuming a lot of those inflammatory foods like the breads and the pastas and the chips, and even when we go toward these paleo or these keto type plans. Really those plans are intended to bring more whole foods into our life. They're intended to bring, like push out some of the processed foods, but I think what we, what we do is we end up swapping one for the other.
Oh, I'm not supposed to have gluten, so let me have this gluten free bread.
Julie Michelson: Which is worse, I think. Yeah.
Chelsie Ward: Yes. And I just talked to a client just the other day and she was like, oh, Chelsie, I tried to go gluten-free, but it didn't work. It [Page//00:09:00] actually made me feel worse. And I'm like, okay, well let's talk through this, you know?
And to come to find out she's eating a lot of gluten-free foods. Processed foods. Exactly. So, and she's like, those gluten-free foods just made me super inflamed. Well, one, there's cross-contamination. So there's almost always gluten in these processed foods. They use a lot of the same like equipment to manufacture these products.
They're still, they still contain wheat. They still contain all the pesticides and herbicides that we're spraying on our foods. They contain high amounts of grains, and what happens is because we think we're eating healthier, then we're, we have a tendency to consume a lot more of those foods. It's like, you know, It's like you're just, your body's just wanting them.
They're craving them. It's like, oh, now I'm eating a healthier bread, or I'm eating a healthier protein bar, or a healthier cookie. It's keto, so it must be okay. And,
Julie Michelson: the whole [Page//00:10:00] box. Yeah.
Chelsie Ward: So we do, we, so we sit down and consume the whole box. So it's, you know, it just becomes more inflammatory for our systems.
So, going back to the Whole Foods. Introducing those more, like I said in the in the early part, meat, fruit, vegetables, kind of as that foundation is what I see to be one of the most healing food plans that there is. And then once we've done that, we've actually eliminated a lot of things that could be causing symptoms, right?
So we've rested the gut a little bit. We've allowed it space to heal. We have stopped working our digestive system so hard. So we've kind of calmed that whole system down. Our immune system's kind of like, okay, I'm, I'm liking this picture a little bit better. You know, we're going into a state of rest and we can really start to heal.
So if we do that and we're removing those inflammatory foods, maybe we're taking [Page//00:11:00] supplements at the same time to decrease inflammation. Things like proteolytic enzymes or fish oil or different things like that just to work on that inflammatory response, just to kind of nurture that a little bit more can be super helpful.
Even certain supplements to detox can be helpful during this phase, you know, just to really open up drainage. So, Because we are exposed to so many toxins on a regular basis. I mean, this is just not only in our food, we're getting sprayed with herbicides and pesticides, right? But we're putting toxic skincare on.
We are cleaning our homes with toxic things. We have carpets and furniture that are off gassing all the time. We are under smog, you know, in this toxic environment we live in, especially if we live in a big city and we're constantly being exposed. And the latest number I heard was we're exposed to over two pounds of toxins every single day that our bodies have to [Page//00:12:00] process.
And I just have to believe that our bodies were not intended to have to process all those things. Man makes those things, but those aren't, they're not just a natural part of the world that, you know, was there at the time of creation, and now we're having to figure out how to process a lot of these toxins that we made,
Julie Michelson: we haven't evolved fast enough for that, for sure. And, and. Again, not to be doom and gloom, cuz we both know we can take steps to, to protect ourselves and reduce that burden. I was, I gave a talk yesterday on pfas the, what they call now, the Forever Chemicals. And they, they had a literature review last year.
It was 40 studies, I believe, around the world, and over 30,000 samples of cord blood. Every single one had pfas in it. And so this is real, [Page//00:13:00] like we need to take the steps where we can, obviously we can't live in a bubble, but that it's such a huge piece of, you know, this chronic illness. Just crazy going on right now.
I really believe.
Chelsie Ward: yeah.
Julie Michelson: yeah, it's, it's huge. You mentioned herbs as a, a component of this real food to, to help heal the gut and reduce inflammation. Can we dig into that a little bit?
Chelsie Ward: Yeah, you know, I think we think about herbs like taking those in the form of a supplement and we think it's like, okay, well if I'm not gonna use a medication that maybe I need to use, like high doses of oregano or you know, just different types of healing herbs. And all those things are fine, like when we're on a healing protocol.
Of course, bringing those things in is great and honestly it's kind of a means to an end, but we can improve the health of our immune [Page//00:14:00] system every single day just by using those a part as a part of our daily regimen. So some really amazing healing herbs are things like garlic, you know, as long as you don't have severe sibo, those types of things.
Garlic can kind of upset your stomach if you have some of those like. More intense like processes that need to be healed a little bit more, but they, garlic can actually be really healing. It can prevent infections like h pylori. We can use things like oregano and just in our food, basil, thyme. Some of these things are actually used in a lot of these.
Supplements to help you heal your gut. They're of course given in higher doses, but if our body is getting these things on just a slow controlled basis, number one, it makes our food so much better. You know you're gonna enjoy your food. Your palate is gonna shift in your mouth. You're not gonna be searching for.
The sweets or the [Page//00:15:00] processed foods, or a lot of those other foods that you found so much love for Because let's face it, these marketing companies know exactly what to do to come after our taste buds. So if we can replace that with tastier meals and instead of making a stir fry that just has chicken and you know, broccoli and you know, just.
N nothing in there, no flavor. We can add these herbs and spices and they have natural anti-inflammatory effects. They have natural antimicrobial effects. They have healing properties that are just really gonna help decrease inflammation in the body. You can use these in the form of food, just like seasonings and spices.
You can also use them in the form of essential oils. You know, so that's another thing that I really love. It's like, you know, those things can be helpful for. To me, it's those just immediate symptoms that come on that [Page//00:16:00] you're just like, oh, I feel like I'm having some sort of flare today. Like I'm just not really feeling myself.
Maybe my brain's not on point. Today I'm having a little bit of brain fog using something like Wild Orange Essential oil. You know, just kind of like putting a couple drops in your hands, rubbing 'em together, putting it on your neck. Your dete and even your wrist can be super helpful for just like getting your energy flowing a little bit, getting your brain moving, even peppermint, you know, using peppermint, like sucking on a peppermint or like a peppermint lozenge or a peppermint essential oil that you can get going.
A another thing is things like fennel, fennel tea. Those are really great for digestive upset. So if you have bloating or if you have gas or if you have some sort of other digestive issue going on, they make teas that have coriander. Fennel, those types of things that are really [Page//00:17:00] beneficial for just your digestive system as a whole.
So it's not only just putting 'em on your food, you can have the herbal teas around. You can have a lot of different things in the arsenal just to kind of make sure that you're covered. And a lot of this is gonna depend on your symptoms. So maybe chamomile is good for sleep, you know? So just having a few things in your arsenal to support you, and teas and seasons and spices are a really good way to go to do that as well.
Julie Michelson: That's such amazing advice for people that aren't already cooking with herbs. Do they have to be fresh? Can they be dry? Do you have any like tips and tricks for just learning to start to play with them?
Chelsie Ward: I really like to think about cuisines that you really enjoy, and to me that's so easy sometimes cuz it's like, Some people are coming from like, I like spaghetti, or I like the Italian type seasonings. Or some other people may like, like Mexican type dishes. [Page//00:18:00] And finding a seasonal blend that can be just like, okay, here's my taco blend.
I'm gonna use that on fajitas and I'm gonna use that on taco salad, or I'm gonna use that on more Mexican style dishes. You'll kind of start to pick up those flavors. So one of the big flavors in say, Mexican type seasonings is cumin. So then you kinda, you learn to pick out those flavors and then you might buy some cumin on the side, or you smell it and you kind of get used to it and you really understand how that's gonna mix with maybe pento beans.
Like it's, it makes a great addition to pinto beans, you know, so you might learn to use that in one dish as a season along. So, The same with like Italian seasonings, you know, Italian has marum, it has oregano, it has a lot of different of your greens, like the green leafy I guess roots and things like that.
[Page//00:19:00] Yes. So those are really like, I would say the biggest thing to really consider here is make sure that they're organic. So, Because you're getting, you're getting, you're getting a lot of bang for your buck when it comes to these herbs and spices. So if you've never seen spices or grains or anything grown in a field, if you haven't seen these big airplanes come over and literally just saturate them with chemicals, I encourage you just, I mean, do a quick Google search and you're gonna see it.
It's very scary. Everything that's touch, like every component of that plant is being touched with herbicides, pesticides, I mean, completely saturated. Here's the thing, these seeds are many times genetically modified. These seeds are many times already sprayed. We can't change the plant after the seed has already destroyed the entire, the [Page//00:20:00] entire plant.
So getting organic is super, super important just because. Your body knows what to do with it. When we start putting something genetically modified, or we start putting these herbicides and pesticides, we are gonna start to see things like leaky gut. We get holes poked in our intestinal lining. We have proteins spilling into circulation where they don't belong.
This is when that immune response happens, right? So if you already have one autoimmune condition, you create this leaky gut system. And these additional proteins are spilling into circulation. This is one way that other autoimmune conditions are usually coming into play, and it's like one will lead to another, lead to another, lead to another.
And you think you're a mess. You're not a mess. It's just that your system has now, like you've created the environment inside for these things to replicate very quickly. [Page//00:21:00] So the organic is so super important. Just it's, it's one little thing that we can do to kind of like, put on the brakes a little bit when it comes to the, the fire.
Julie Michelson: I love that. And, and the herbs are so nutrient dense. For people that are trying to work on increasing, you know, their, their nutrient density and their veggie intake, a little bit of herb a little bit, you know, a clove of garlic is like a serving of vegetables. It's, it's really amazing. I wanna add also, I'd like to thank all of the organic blends would just be what you think you're getting, but this is another place you have to read your labels.
So often they're putting sugar in these, these blends. I went to a this fancy spice store and I bought a gift for somebody without reading. The back and then before I gifted it, I read it and it had sugar. I tossed it out. And it wasn't a sweet, it was an herbal [Page//00:22:00] blend. It shouldn't have had sugar in it.
So it's still read your labels for sure. And herbs are so fun to grow. Like, even if you're not a gardener it's, it's just a great, you can grow them in a pot. I know. It's just fun.
Chelsie Ward: Yeah, jump on Amazon. Grab like a little herb grower in your, and put it in your windowsill. It's so cute. And you can snip those fresh herbs if you've never had fresh herbs. Oh, it makes a world of difference in your dishes. It's like night and day and you know, and here's how you ex, here's how I explain it.
So you know how you have an Italian dish and you make the sauce and it's like always better the next day, you know, because the flavors have time to marry and all that. It's like you're getting that on day one when you're using fresh herbs. It's like, it's like they're already just like so flavorful and robust whenever they're fresh.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. And they just, they, even when you're [Page//00:23:00] not cooking with them, they smell so good. I can't wait for my herbs to, to, to explode. We just planted the garden last week though, so we have to be a little patient.
Chelsie Ward: Yes, yes. I did the same. I'm like, okay, I am waiting and I go out there every day and I'm talking to my vegetables and I'm like, you know, loving on 'em and it's so much fun.
Julie Michelson: It's, it's the best and it, it, it really has become addictive. People say all the time, well, I don't know how to garden. I'm like, I don't know how to garden. And we don't buy produce pretty much all summer. I mean, we have enough. It, it's incredible. And every year we just add, it's like, oh, well we haven't grown.
Last year we grew butternut squash for the first time, and now it's always gonna be one of the, the summer staples. You know, we, and we're, we're, we ate it all. Winter it holds. So it, it can, it can get you hooked for sure.
Chelsie Ward: And it's a learning curve. Just like everything, you know, it's like I, I messed up, like the first year I had like tons of tomatoes and peppers and they were [Page//00:24:00] flourishing. And I'm like, what? What's wrong with my squashing zucchini? You know? And I've moved, you know, to different areas and like, if you're moving and you're in a different area, different climate, like things need, you know, different amounts of water, they need different amounts of sunshine, you know, just.
So play with it. Plant one or two things, and don't get frustrated with the process. It's, it can be a lot of fun if you start doing it
Julie Michelson: It is. It, it definitely is. And yeah, I joke, I, my stuff grows in spite of me. Really. It's like survival of the fittest in my garden. And we've now added the, like the squash, some of the stuff we grew last year it was not even in the garden. I just put it. In the beds around the house and it, it was happy.
And we have terrible soil, so it, it really is easier than you think.
Chelsie Ward: Oh yeah. Things wanna grow. They wanna live and thrive.
Julie Michelson: What are some tips for listeners? So that's the food, you know, anti-inflammatory, healing [Page//00:25:00] foods. Whole foods. Real foods. The herbs are so incredible. What are some other things that that listeners can do to aid digestion? Just to help you digest your food better?
Chelsie Ward: One of the things that I see is very common is low stomach acid. So it is so important for us to kind of support just acid. And the reason being is because if we have low stomach acid, we're actually creating an environment that, number one, we don't digest our food well, so we don't absorb our nutrients.
We don't break those down as well. So if you have, maybe you're passing food in your stool, that's a really a big sign that you have low stomach acid. A lot of my clients even say, Hey, my, my poop is the same color as the food I ate. And I'm like, that is not good. That means that you have low stomach acid.
Now, I mean, if you eat a ton of beets, that that might be, you know, a different story, but you know, for [Page//00:26:00] the most part, you shouldn't eat. Greens, and then it'd be green and you shouldn't eat peppers, and then it'd be red, you know? So different things like that. So if you're seeing that, then we really wanna work on that.
Stomach acid.
Julie Michelson: And I'm gonna throw in another such a common Symptom of low stomach acid is so count. You know, this is one of those cases where functional medicine has a just a 180 approach from traditional western medicine, but low stomach acid causes heartburn and reflux
Chelsie Ward: Yeah,
Julie Michelson: you're not getting that signal and, and can cause constipation too.
So So, so what do we do since it is such a common thing what, what do we do to support that?
Chelsie Ward: So what I love to use is bitter greens. So anything like, just think of, you know, greens that you're gonna. Grow, like you can do collared greens, you can do mustard, you can do dandelion, you [Page//00:27:00] can do any type of like leafy green vegetable, so the more bitter, the better. Even things like hale, they're really super beneficial for just helping you improve that system.
The other thing is citrus, but citrus fruits. And what I love about citrus is that you can really pair it with anything. You can put it on a salad. You can have it as a side in the morning with your breakfast. You can. Have it as a dessert for dinner. It goes with anything. So grapefruit is one of the best for actually helping improve the stomach acid.
You can have a warm glass of lemon water in the morning. That'll kind of help perk up the liver and just tell it to wake up and start that digestive process. And another thing I like to do is apple cider vinegar. So some people like to take it before meals. You might just put a couple teaspoons and a glass of water and drink it down maybe 30 minutes before a meal to kind of help that digestive process.
But you can also add it to your foods [Page//00:28:00] so you can make dressings with it for salads. Sometimes I'll just do like a bed of greens. Put a few warm vegetables on there and then, you know, I'm making a salad. Yes. But it's got that, it's got the cold greens. It's got the warm vegetables, and then I'll top it with some chicken and I put a dressing on there, but I'm really topping that with the apple cider vinegar to give it that punch, but also to help with the digestive process.
So if you're eating greens and you're eating these colorful vegetables, if you'll start with those first. So start your meal fresh fiber first kind of like guideline. Then you're gonna notice that you start to really break down your food a lot better, and it's because these foods have natural digestive enzymes in them, and they'll help you produce more of that, those enzymes release more of the enzymes in your mouth, help you improve your stomach acid so that you can better digest everything else as it comes in that protein that feels really heavy in your [Page//00:29:00] stomach.
It usually happens not because you're reacting to protein or red meat or anything like that, but it's really because you don't have the stomach acid to break it down and it's sitting in there like a brick because it needs the extra enzymes and that acid to really break it down.
Julie Michelson: That is amazing gold and, and almost everybody I work with, if not everybody needs support with enzymes and stomach acid and just getting things totally reset. So I, I love those tips. Again, it's just stuff you can incorporate in your meals, which is fantastic, but you can't get it in a box.
Chelsie Ward: Right. Yeah, it's so true. It's, you know, one supplement that I may use for people, like with the digestive enzyme, something with be attain hcl can be beneficial. You really have to be careful because sometimes our stomach lining can be so irritated from stress from, again, those herbicides and pesticides from [Page//00:30:00] just breakdown and the little cilia.
That are lining your gut, they are actually responsible for absorbing the nutrients. And when we have leaky gut, when we have stomach breakdown, when we have chronically low stomach acid, those cilia actually start to break down and think of it like just kind of like a raw wound sometimes. So if we start putting acid in a little too fast without strengthening that stomach lining, A lot of times we can feel burning, we can feel irritation and and things like that.
And we think, and that's when we think, oh no, I have high stomach acid. And people will say, no, my stomach acid's not low. It's really high. And I'm like, well, your body is actually producing that in a very quick amount. Very fast every time you put food in, because it's like, oh no, something's coming in.
I've gotta produce enough acid to break it down because, yeah, because the stomach acid is chronically low, and that's the reason that happens again, and that's what causes the heartburn [Page//00:31:00] and the indigestion and the reflux disease as well.
Julie Michelson: I love that. And, and to top off, you mentioned it you know, chewing your food, right? You mentioned the enzymes that get in in our mouth. I mean, just chewing really well in and. You know, mindful eating all, all of the things, right? Getting out of that stress response before you start to eat is just, it's like magic.
So,
Chelsie Ward: Yeah. We are in such a fast paced go go mentality, and this is just. You know, we're on the run, we're grabbing a fast food burger, we're grabbing a fast meal. It's like, how can we get the quickest thing in possible and if we will just slow down long enough to chew our food, digestion begins in the mouth.
So if we chew our food, break it down. I like to say to the consistency of salsa, so maybe not the real chunky salsa, but you know
Julie Michelson: My grandfather used to [Page//00:32:00] always say he was a chewer. He was, he said, you know, chew until you don't even need to swallow, is what he used to say.
Chelsie Ward: just let it absorb.
Julie Michelson: Yeah.
Chelsie Ward: That's so good. It's good because we don't slow down enough. We don't even breathe. It's like, I remember sitting at a, like a little subway bar. It was in Philadelphia, and this guy hands me a sub and I ate it. And he was like, did you even chew that? And I was like, I was so embarrassed.
And then I was realizing, oh my gosh, this is how I live my life. You know, I'm on a vacation and I should be enjoying this sub, you know, that he's put in front of me this Philly sandwich and Philly. And I didn't even get to enjoy it because I was so busy, just like being in my rushed mindset and we're just so guilty of not taking the time to slow down to even taste our food.
Julie Michelson: that's such a, such a great reminder. So you've already given us this gigantic list of things people can start incorporating and doing, but [Page//00:33:00] this is the point of the interview where I put you on the spot. I ask you to just give listeners one step. If they do one thing after listening to this episode, something they can start today to improve their health.
Chelsie Ward: It's gonna be unconventional
Julie Michelson: Yay. Good. Love it.
Chelsie Ward: And after illness and after burnout and after illness again. And just, you know, going through my own health journey, watching other people go through their health journey, I've started to connect a really big dot, and that is really embracing the slowdown. And this is huge because so many times we are like, I'm gonna do the yoga because like I, I know that it's, it's my way of slowing down and I'm gonna heal from this, and then I'm gonna take these pills and that's my way to heal my physical [Page//00:34:00] body.
And then I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this meditation because that's gonna heal my mindset. And we start to do all these things and we're just like forcing health. And what happens is we're in that yoga class. Yes. But we're not really in the yoga class. We are checking it exactly. We're checking it off the list.
So one tip that I'm gonna leave you with is start your daily health practice with gratitude. It doesn't matter what it is, you know, it can be like, I don't really feel like taking a walk in the morning, but I know I need that sunshine and the sun on my skin and to reset the circadian rhythm. So getting out in the sunlight can be as simple as.
Like if we are grateful for that, for the sun and the ability to move our body and just expressing gratitude and thankfulness for the birds that are singing to us on our adventure [Page//00:35:00] and really taking in the beauty of the sky, the green around us. Maybe we see a deer in the distance. I don't know what you have around you when you're taking your morning walk.
But if we can begin to express that gratitude, if we can sit down for five seconds, not even five minutes, five seconds, and take a few deep cleansing breaths before our meal. Make the decision to celebrate the fact that we're having a healthy meal. We're choosing a healthy meal. Express gratitude for the animal that may have provided its life for us.
Gratitude that we have amazing food on our plate. Gratitude for having the knowledge and understanding that food is healing. And just trusting and believing and having faith that as we do those things, that that food is really gonna come in. It's gonna nourish ourselves. It's gonna nourish everything inside of our body in a way that we can begin to heal.
I [Page//00:36:00] think this will take us so far, it's, it's really just finding the gratitude in everything. Some people might find that journaling is very easy, a easy way to express that, like writing down the things. Me, I just like to voice it. I just like to say I'm so grateful for, you know, and as I'm on my morning walk, I'm, I'm doing that.
I've started a gratitude jar before and every time something great happens in the day, just go to your jar, write down that wonderful thing that happened and like, just watch that paper. Just stack up over time and it watch your jar feel. Because I think so many times we can be so focused on our healing journey.
We're like, oh, we gotta do the one more thing. Oh, the one more step. And am I gonna deal with this inflammation and this autoimmune condition and this process for the rest of my life? But if we can remember and we can look at that little jar and we can see those little papers stacking up every single day, we can be [Page//00:37:00] so reminded that we are doing really good on our journey.
Julie Michelson: I love that. And it is a journey.
Chelsie Ward: it is
Julie Michelson: amazing. And I, I love that. I, I'm like, is, is gratitude unconventional? I mean, I guess conventional. Conventional. Not on this show. It's not. But I, I
Chelsie Ward: your vegetables.
Julie Michelson: I love it. I love it. Before we wrap up, for people that are listening on the go, where's the best place to find you?
Chelsie Ward: So I am, I'm pretty much all over social media. Chelsie Ward Wellness, and it's c h e l s i e w a r D. I'm at Chelsie ward.com and I'm on Instagram, Facebook, you know, it's very easy. My book has healed his way. It's on my website, it's on Amazon. So just do a quick Google search. You should be able to find me.
Julie Michelson: Amazing. Chelsie, thank you so much. You have shared incredible nuggets with us today.
Chelsie Ward: Thank you so much for having me, Julie. [Page//00:38:00] It's been my pleasure.
Julie Michelson: For everyone listening remember, you can get the show notes and transcripts by visiting Inspiredliving.show. I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did. See you next week. [Page//00:39:00]
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Chelsie Ward
Chelsie Ward has been a student of the human mind and body for over 20 years. She has a background in Applied Behavior Analysis, is a Registered Nurse, FDN Practitioner, and spiritual healer. She works with independent, driven, fun-loving women who are tired of hiding from life trying to figure out digestive and hormone imbalances on their own and supports them with a personalized plan so they can love themselves and feel good in their own skin. She is the author of “Healed His Way” where she shares natural healing techniques that have been used by many others so they can experience health the way it was intended.
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