Read the Episode Transcript:

Hello my friend, and welcome back to The Live FAB Life Podcast! I’m your host, Naomi Nakamura.

If you’re listening to this podcast, then I think I can safely assume that:

You care about your health You have, plan to, or want to take action to improve your health. You may or may not also be struggling with some sort of digestive, or chronic condition And/or you’re tried conventional approaches and they haven’t worked, or you’re interested in a different, a more complete way to better your health

And I know that by being here, you’re likely to be more than the casual person. Your health is a priority to you and you know that there’s more to being healthy than what you hear about in mainstream media.

But when you’re trying to figure things out and navigate your own way, the process really comes down to trial and error.

When I decided that I was tired of feeling rundown all the time, tired of feeling puffy and bloated, tired of dealing with IBS, at that time, there weren’t as many resources available to help me. Functional Nutrition and holistic wellness definitely wasn’t as accessible or known as it is today and so I “trial and error” is precisely what my journey was like.

And that’s not an uncommon or bad thing because of bioindividuality, right? We can learn all the best practices, but at the end of the day, if a best practice doesn’t work for you, it doesn’t work for you.

So today, I’m going to share 10 mistakes that I’ve made over the course of the past few years, particularly when I first learned that I had adrenal fatigue, and hopefully it’ll help you in avoiding some of the mistakes that I made. So let’s dive in, shall we?

#1 - You want to heal and lose weight at the same time

A bit of a backstory: I was overweight and out of shape most of my life. It wasn’t until 2004 when I joined Gold’s Gym and started working with a personal trainer, who I worked with for 10 years, that I really found a passion for health and fitness, which is very different from health and wellness.

Because my focal point was working out. That was my priority and how I found and unleashed my inner athlete. And through that experience, I lost 50 pounds and dropped five sizes.

After years of pushing my body to the max with training and workouts, I overdid it, and found myself suffering from adrenal fatigue.

And this is really where my health and wellness journey began, because I desperately wanted to heal myself.

But here’s the thing - if you’ve someone who’s struggled with your weight before, and really, are conditioned by any part of the way our society has defined beauty and what women’s bodies should look like, then that mentality to lose weight is deeply conditioned within us.

So, at the very start of my self-healing journey, I thought that I could self-heal through dietary treatments, and still lose weight at the same time.

While I suppose it’s possible, it’s also exhausting. And when you’re trying to self-heal from a health condition, you need to remove as much stress as you can. Because obsessing about what the scale says, what your macros are, and your calories in and out, can be counterproductive to the actual self-healing process.

It was for me, and when I finally came to accept that those two things weren’t conducive to each other, I had to decide what I wanted more? To heal, reclaim my energy and feel good again, or let the scale guide me. And by the way, at that time, I didn’t need to lose any weight - that was some disordered thinking I had there.

So if you’re on a self-healing journey and still clinging to the notion of losing weight too, do a self-audit, because more often than not, you can do one, or the other, but not both at the same time.

#2 - You want to heal and train athletically at the same level at the same time

This is right along the same lines as #1.

I found myself suffering with adrenal fatigue after years of overtraining - from two and three-a-day gym workouts to non-stop long-distance endurance and strength training.

This, along with all the stress that we deal with in our day-to-day lives was more than what my body could handle.

And I was finally forced to accept that when I went from running marathons, to not being able to even run a mile without excruciating leg pain and exhaustion. But, being the Type A, and quite frankly, stubborn person that I am, I didn’t accept that in order for me to heal, I needed to make significant changes in my day-to-day life, specifically making rest a priority.

I thought that I could still train at the same level that I’d been training at for marathons and half-marathons and still self-heal from adrenal fatigue.

And over the years I’ve seen many an endurance athlete make the same mistake of knowing they are burnt out, overtrained and struggling with adrenal fatigue but thinking that taking one extra rest day is enough.

No my friends, when you are burnt out, overtrained and struggling with adrenal issues and depletion one extra rest day a week isn’t going to cut it. Two extra rest days may not cut it. You may need to take an extended break and not workout at all.

Or shift your workouts to gentle yoga, walking and stretching.

As an athlete, it is hella hard to do this. You’re afraid of gaining weight, terrified of losing conditioning, and on a deeper, subconscious level, afraid of losing your identity as an athlete.

I’m speaking from first hand experience here; it’s hard, and its scary but if you truly want to heal, especially from something where you’re depleted, its a reality that you need to accept and shift you need to make.

#3 - You don’t realize there’s a difference between grain-free and gluten-free

One of the first things I did in my self-healing journey was to clean up my diet. Now, I had already been eating gluten-free and dairy-free, but I had so many gut issues that unfortunately, that wasn’t enough.

I remember when my functional medicine doctor told me I should look into the autoimmune protocol and remove grains from my diet.

“Oh I’m already gluten-free” I told her, but she pointed out that gluten-free and grain-free are in fact, not the same things. That sounds so obvious but up until she said that, I hadn’t processed the difference.

You can have gluten-free grains - like gf oats, rice, etc but going grain-free means avoiding all of that.

#4 - You stick to a healing dietary protocol for far too long

When you have IBS and then SIBO one of the recommended food treatments is a dietary protocol called “Low FODMAPS.” FODMAPS stands for:

fermentable oligo-, di-, mono-saccharides and polyols

These are a type of carbohydrate that is difficult to digest.

And when ingested into an unbalanced gut environment, can cause immensely painful gas and bloating, among other discomforting symptoms common in IBS, SIBO and other digestive issues. The most common FODMAPS are found in dairy, grains, legumes, and fruits and veggies like onions and garlic - healthy foods for a healthy person. But not so healthy for someone with digestive and gut health issues.

So as you can imagine, Low FODMAPS is a very restrictive and difficult dietary protocol to follow.

Why? Because these types of diets should really be practiced as an elimination diet - to help you identify food sensitive and intolerances. Once you’ve collected that data and analyzed it, then come up with a plan to heal your gut and conditions you have.

So really, a protocol like Low FODMAPS should only be followed for about three weeks, and then another 2-3 weeks for a reintroduction period.

I made the mistake of following Low FODMAPS for a full year. It was hard, it was annoying and worst of all, I think it made me sicker. Because the foods that you eliminate have vitamins and minerals that your body still needs.

I stayed on it for a year because I was afraid that if I came off of it, my symptoms, which were really bad, would return and I didn’t want to deal with it. That is until one day, I was so sick of being so restrictive with my eating, that I added onions and garlic to whatever I was cooking for dinner.

And I kid you not, the minute that I ate those foods, it was like an awakening happened in my body because I hadn’t had the sulfur and other nutrients that garlic and onions provide.

So use nutritional therapy protocols as they are intended.

#5 - You only rely on supplements

Supplements can be a critical part of a self-healing process - when food and lifestyle treatments are also taken.

The word supplement literally means to “added to” or “a part of.”

Yet, I’ve seen over and over again supplements used in place of food and lifestyle treatments because perhaps people are unwilling to make the effort to change what they eat and how they live.

Folks, that kind of approach is no different than using medications to mask symptoms.

In the Functional Medicine and holistic world, supplements can be critical components of the healing process. I’ve certainly taken my share of them, but at times they’ve gotten to be too much.

When my daily supplements can’t fit into my daily pill box, well that’s when I know I need to reassess what I’m doing.

#6 - You think you can exercise your way out of bad diet

I used to workout with the mindset that that gave me the permission to eat anything I wanted.

I mean, I used to go hard on my workouts during Thanksgiving week, even so much as to spend 3 hours at the gym on Thanksgiving morning in preparation for a huge Thanksgiving meal. I think that’s fine (well maybe no the 3 hrs in the gym on Thanksgiving morning), but I think its more than healthy to indulge on an annual holiday like Thanksgiving, but thinking that running dozens of miles every week, or daily workouts in the gym absolves you of eating healthy foods - well, that doesn’t really work if its true health that you’re after.

Of course exercise is important, but so is what you put in your body - you can’t just focus on one in the hopes of absolving the other.

#7 - You beat yourself up if you “mess up”

Oh us Type A personalities - we want everything to be perfect, right? Your My Fitness Pal needs to be perfect, your meals have to hit your macro targets perfectly, you have to, have to, have to - and if you don’t, you feel like an utter failure because you “messed up.”

I talked all about this perfectionistic thinking in the last episode, Episode 135, so if you haven’t listened to it yet, pause this episode right now, and go listen to it. It’s a quick listen, then come back and finish this one.

In short, this perfectionistic thinking is toxic and unhealthy - the very opposite of what you’re trying to do - so have grace with yourself. There is no such thing as messing up if you learned something from the experience.

We are all flawed humans - perfectionism isn’t realistic.

#8 - You discount the importance of rest

Being the driven person that I am, I’m not one for rest. I don’t like complacency.

I’d begrudgingly take one rest day per week from my workouts, only because my coach forced me to, and there were even days when I “only” did yoga because I didn’t consider yoga to be a workout. (side note: my views have now changed and yoga is a hella hard workout).

But the truth is, when you’re in healing-mode, rest is the important thing you can do or yourself. And if you want to avoid having to be in healing-mode, rest is one of the most important things you can do for yourself.

But rest is more than just taking rest days from working out.

It’s also about taking breaks from our devices and anything that stimulates our brains. It means removing sources of stress, which can be simple things like inflammatory foods from our diets, or more complex things like changing your job or even your career.

After years of going in and out of burnout and adrenal fatigue, and discounting the value of trust rest, I finally accepted the fact that I didn’t know HOW to rest. I literally didn’t know how to turn off my brain. This is why, despite every remedy possible, I still couldn’t get a good night’s sleep. It’s an ongoing process that I’m still learning about every single day.

#9 - You over track everything

My entry into health came when my personal trainer who I worked with from 2004 to 2015 introduced me to Calorie King (because My Fitness Pal didn’t exist then) to track calories in and calories out.

This was the first time I’d ever done any tracking, or had any sort of context around how many calories were in food and it really was a key factor in my initial 50 lb weight loss.

Then I got into long-distance running and training, when everything became about tracking mileage, splits, and pace.

I mean, my math skills improved considerably from doing all of this.

But it also became a bit of an OCD thing for me, which made it a source of stress. It became the guiding factor for all decisions that I made.

No, I can’t take a rest day because I have to continue with this run streak, or hit 100 miles this month.

Or, I’m not eating breakfast and lunch because I’m saving calories for when we go out to dinner tonight.

When you find yourself allowing what you track to influence these kinds of decisions, then its time to assess the influence you’re allowing it to have in your life.

#10 - You don’t track enough

Yes, this is counterintuitive, I realize this, but tracking DOES have a role and play a valuable role.

Like I said, when I was first introduced to tracking calories in and out on Calorie King, it was the first time I learned, just how many calories are in a bowl of cereal! And if I ate a huge bowl of cereal, I’d likely be eating half of my daily recommended calories per day!

That initial tracking gave me context and helped me to be more mindful in what I chose to eat. Should I spend 600 calories on a bowl of sugar cereal that will leave me hungry again in an hour? Or can I spend those 600 calories on a breakfast that has fat, fiber and protein which has way more nutrients, and will keep me satiated longer?

In a healing journey, tracking is a critical exercise to collect data. Keeping a food journal, tracking your bowel movements, your moods, your water intake, your sleep patterns, and then seeing how all of these things correlate together is ESSENTIAL to putting together a complete plan or protocol for your healing journey.

When practicing Functional Nutrition, we track, then assess, then make recommendations, then continue to track some more and tweak based upon what the tracking data tells us.

Is it meant to be a long-term thing? No. Is it something you should obsessed over? No. But it does need to be done in a healing process and can be a good thing.

Bonus: you are resistant to change, but aren’t really committed to change

Let’s do a quick recap shall we?

The crux of most of these things comes down to your mindset and your commitment to change. How many times have you or someone you know started a diet because you want to lose weight, or joined a gym because you want to get fit, but then after a few months, weeks or even days, you falter off.

If it was something you truly wanted, you’d be consistent and committed, right?

I wanted to heal from adrenal fatigue and gut issues, but I resisted cutting back on my workouts, stepping back from training and racing, until it got so bad that my body FORCED me to do so.

Then, when I peeled back the layers and took a look at what really was the root cause of my adrenal fatigue, it was this “need to / have to” drive, to do what’s accomplish the impossible, to live up to {unrealistic} expectations set mostly by myself, but by others too.

But here’s the thing, we aren’t meant to live under this kind of pressure for prolonged periods of time. Our bodies, brains and spirit need REST.

So I said I wanted to manage my stress and went through the motions of practicing meditation. But I was inconsistent and noncommittal about it.

Until I got to the point where I was tired of being tired. I was tired of feeling burnt out. And I had to ask myself, what is it that I truly want?

If you want to heal and change, but find that you aren’t consistent, ask yourself, “is this what I truly want?”

If self-healing is your priority, then are your actions matching your intentions?

So there you have it - 10, well 11, mistakes that I’ve made in my ongoing self-healing journey.

Do any of these resonate with you?

Come on over and tell me, which ones you related to. Leave a comment on the show notes for this episode at www.livefablife.com/136, or come find me on Instagram at @livefablifewithnaomi.

I love hearing from you! As I say every week, thank you so much for being here! And if there’s a topic from today’s episode that you want to dive deeper into, let me know!

Thanks for listening, and I’ll see you next week! Bye!