Episode 258: Reframe How You Think About Healthy
In this episode, I’m sharing how I’ve shifted my mindset to reframe and expand how I think about healthy to truly take a whole-listic approach encompassing body, mind, and spirit, including but not limited to nutritional therapies, bio-individuality, societal influences, and self-investments.
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“Good health happens when the human body’s system runs optimally - how it’s meant to. And by the human body, I mean its full system in its entirety - not segmented, the way the medical community has structured it to be.”
Read the Transcript:
Hello, and welcome back to The Live FAB Life Podcast. I'm your host Naomi Nakamura, and after a few weeks off, I'm happy to be back here with you this week. I took a few unplanned weeks off to focus on some creative projects. When it comes to creative projects, I need to be completely focused, with all of my energy going to one thing, so the podcast got put on the back burner, but I’m back!
We spent several recent episodes talking about business and Human Design, and while I don’t consider myself a business expert. But I have had an almost 30-year professional career, and I know a thing or two about work - which is different from business.
So, we're going to shift a little bit, at least for the next few episodes, and we’re going back to some of the original topics of the show - healthy living.
After spending the past eight years of health coaching, it’s disappointing to see that health is still equated with aesthetics, size, and how fit we are, to think that health is fitness and fitness is health - because it’s not.
At one time, I was of that same mindset too, where I unconsciously believed that the two were the same. It wasn't until, as many of you know, I overtrained. I was a marathoner - it became my entire life, and I overtrained.
That was when I realized that health and fitness are two very separate things, and being fit doesn't equate to being healthy, and being healthy doesn't equate to being fit.
So, one of the things that I have come to advocate is bio-individuality - the belief that we’re all unique; we’re all different. One person's medicine might be another person's poison.
Good health happens when the human body's system runs optimally - how it's meant to. And by the human body, I mean its full system in its entirety - not segmented, the way the medical community has structured it to be.
If you've been listening for a while, you know that last year I struggled with terrible skin issues, and after four doctors and nine months of suffering, I finally had a diagnosis and treatment plan that actually worked.
It turned out that I had atopic dermatitis, specifically nummular eczema. I’ve been taking a pharmaceutical called Dupixent, a medication administered through self-injection, which I never thought I would give myself every two weeks.
When Dupixent was prescribed for me, I researched it, and it works by suppressing certain cytokines. Cytokines are part of our immune system.
If you’ve ever heard someone refer to acne or skin issues as a gut problem, well, anatomically, the gut and immune system are intricately connected. So, if I'm having skin issues and a medication that suppresses certain cytokines treats it, then my skin issues are because of an immune system imbalance, and a large part of the immune system is in the gut - thus if I support my gut health, my immune system is also supported which is advantageous to skin health.
As much as I love my dermatologist, and I truly do, we have not discussed supporting my immune system.
This is what I mean by today’s healthcare system segments the body - we go to the dermatologist for the skin, the neurologists for the brain, the gastroenterologist for digestive issues, the podiatrist for feet issues, and our primary care physician is supposed to provide referrals for us to see these specialists and coordinate the everything. Still, in my experience, we have to be own advocate. We have to be our own patient coordinators. We have to take notes, track everything, and update one doctor with what’s going on with the other doctors - it's a lot. And I know you relate to this because I'm sure you've had a similar situation, something pretty close to it, or you know someone who has.
We, as in you and me, need to take a step back and look at the whole system. The body is a full system - I don't just mean the physical body; we must care equally for our mind and spirit.
At the time of recording, it’s May 2023, and it’s Mental Health Awareness Month. But mental health isn’t any less important than physical health. It’s all connected.
If you’re a listener to this show, I know you already know this, but we have to do more than “just know” we have to act and truly live our lives, taking care of ourselves this way.
Full body system.
When one system is compromised, whether it's body, mind, or spirit, or if it's a system in the body that’s compromised - the digestive, immune, cardiovascular, neurological - you get the idea - when one of these systems is compromised, it throws all of the other systems out of balance, which means that one (or many) other systems has to work even harder to compensate for the imbalance.
When this happens for a prolonged period of time, without any effort to bring things back into balance, this is how illness and health challenges develop.
And sometimes, despite our most valiant efforts to repair our health and bring it back into balance, we go down a path and get fixated on an idea of perfect health, which almost becomes an obsession.
But there’s no such thing as perfect health because the truth is, simply living in our modern world, at some point or another, all of us, you and me and every person we know, will have parts of our full body system compromised from time to time.
Whether from too much stress, smog, or the standard American diet - whatever it is, at some point in our lives, one of the systems, or many in our full body system, will be compromised. There's just no avoiding it.
What does matter is that we repair it. And the path to repair will be different for each of us because of bio-individuality. My path to healing will look very different than yours. So, when it comes to knowing how to go about it, we must assess ourselves.
There are three areas of consideration that I look at when assessing my health and that of my clients, particularly if there’s a specific health concern that we’re trying to uncover the root cause of. And by the way, there's usually more than one root cause.
So, let’s take a quick look at these three areas.
First is our antecedents, also known as our genetic history, which is there’s a section in my Functional Nutrition Assessments that focuses on family health history. We want to see if there’s anything in your genetic history that might contribute to your health complaints.
Now, before you think, “Well, gosh, if it's genetics, then I'm doomed,” don't forget about epigenetics because you have no control over your genetics.
Epigenetics is how we influence our genetic expression. I'm sure you’ve heard of 23 and me. If you’ve done the 23 and Me test, you know you receive a list of genes and probabilities of having certain conditions based on your DNA.
Well, even though you have the gene, there’s never a guarantee that the condition will actually manifest because of epigenetics. You can influence your genetic expression through the choices that you make every day, which brings me to the second consideration.
So, first, there’s antecedents, aka genetic history, and the second is “mediators,” aka our daily habits - the choices we make daily.
Our daily habits are how we care for ourselves and impact how we feel and function every day, day in and day out.
Mediators are how we nourish our bodies, which is more than just how and what we put on our plates and feed ourselves.
Mediators are how and how often we move and exercise
Mediators are how we rest, which isn’t necessarily the same as sleep. But sleep is also critical. How are we sleeping? How much sleep are we getting? What’s the quality of our sleep?
Mediators are how do I spend my time? Am I doing enjoyable activities - things that I like?
Mediators are what my support system and social networks look like.
So we look at our antecedents, genetic expression, and mediators, aka our daily habits, directly reflecting how we care for ourselves.
While we think of these things as impacting how we feel and function, we must also consider the long-term effects of our daily choices.
For example, I have a dairy intolerance, and for a long time, I ignored it because I love cheese and ice cream - not together, and who wants to give up cheese and ice cream?! But every time I ate it, I had the worst tummy ache, and my body went into digestive distress, and I know I’m not the only one - many people have told me they’ve experienced the same thing, too.
But I ignored it and continued to eat cheese and ice cream - not together - until I got to the point where I couldn't ignore it anymore.
But I never considered the long-term effect of suffering through this digestive distress. And when it's been tolerated for years, at some point, there's gonna be damage that needs to be repaired.
In my case, I developed Leaky Gut Syndrome. I've done past episodes on Leaky Gut Syndrome - Episodes 071 and 140 - which I'll link to it in the show notes for this episode, which will be at livefablife.com/258.
Leaky Gut Syndrome affects many different systems in our bodies and impairs the body's ability to function at its best.
So when we go about our daily habits, we have to realize that it's not just how it impacts us in the near term but what effect the choices we make every day have in the long term. And then, what is the chronic load of all of our collective choices and habits?
The third area that I consider when looking at health is the environment we live in. What surrounds us has a direct impact on our health.
When I bring up the environment, the first thoughts that come to mind are air quality and clean drinking water. Yes, absolutely; of course, these things matter.
But let's go even further.
What’s in our homes can have a greater effect on our health simply by proximity, contributing even further to our toxic load.
These are things like cookware and what we’re cooking our food in. Non-stick and Teflon are not things we want alchemizing with what we put into our bodies.
And related, what are we storing our food in, then heating up in the microwave?
It’s what we are applying to our bodies.
Again, in the near term, no big deal, but over the course of a prolonged period of time - a lifetime? And in combination with the other things that contribute to our toxic load?
This is how we need to look at health. Not just in January when everyone wants to find their word for the year that they forget by March or this is the year that they lose 20 lbs. Because despite the heightened awareness of holistic and even functional health, these are still the ads I’m being fed on Instagram and what I’m seeing in television commercials and national news.
This is how we need to look at health, not just when we are diagnosed and forced to make changes.
And if there are areas of concern, what’s triggering the symptoms? What’s causing the symptoms to manifest?
Is it food? Is it something in our immediate environments? Is it something from our genetic history? Is it a bit of everything because our toxic load is overflowing more than our full body system can handle?
Even in the holistic and functional health world, this can be missighted with. There’s too quick of a turn to biohacking, supplements, and lab tests - and look, I'm not saying these things aren't valuable in repairing one's health - I use them in my health today, but that’s typically where it ends when there’s so much more that can be done.
When searching for the root causes, you must peel back the layers, even the uncomfortable ones that go beyond the physical body.
Let me share an experience that I had with a recent client. They came to me because they were having severe digestive issues. They were working with a doctor but wanted support to implement some of the changes the doctor had advised them to make.
As I do with all of my health coaching clients, we completed a Functional Nutrition Assessment, and what I noted that repeatedly came up was lacking energy and feeling tired and fatigued all the time.
I wanted to understand this further, so we kept peeling back the layers to understand why that was. It was revealed that this client wasn't sleeping well - they weren't at all.
Typically, when someone has sleeping problems, we first turn to supplements. I mean, just last week, I saw my own integrative medicine doctor and mentioned that with the season change, I wasn’t getting as much sleep during the spring and summer as I do during the winter. And the first thing they told me was to try taking magnesium.
I tried that years ago, and it didn’t make any difference.
So with this client, we kept peeling back the layers to understand what was causing their disrupted sleep.
They were caught in a vicious cycle because the lack of sleep left them tired, so they depended on snacks and beverages high in sugar to function throughout the day.
But all the sugar was causing a fluctuation in their blood sugar - which was impacting their ability to sleep - a vicious cycle.
So, we needed to work on balancing their blood sugar, but we continued peeling back the layers and digging deeper.
They said, “You know what's keeping me up at night? Anxiety - I have a lot of anxiety.”
I’m not a therapist and don’t profess to be one, but we talked a little more - about what made them anxious, which turned out to be their job. They hated their job because it wasn’t what they loved to do. It wasn’t even what they liked to do. They dreaded going to work every day, and it was affecting their ability to sleep, affecting their health - and you see the domino effect here.
We also looked at their Human Design, and guess what - this person was a Generator. And if you know anything about Generators, it’s essential to their existence to do what they love. And when they're not doing what they love, it’s like the kiss of death. It is like their soul dying slowly; life is being sucked out of them. These were the exact words this client used to express how they felt about their job.
When Generators do what they love, their aura shines, their joy is infectious, and everyone wants to be around them because they want to feel good and happy. But this person’s aura was dull, and no joy was expressed, and this had been going on for a prolonged period.
We spent more time leaning into their Human Design, and it was a privilege to witness because they released everything that they’d held pent up inside. It was like a burden was lifted off their shoulders that they honestly didn't even realize was there.
It was as if the fog was lifted, and the sun was now shining with full clarity.
This client expressed feeling excited about the potential of what could be in their future; they felt optimistic, not doomed - they felt empowered.
And it led them to start making better choices in their daily habits in how they cared for themselves, and they’ve been able to break that vicious cycle they were stuck in. It’s changed their entire outlook and mentality, and it’s been a privilege to witness.
So, let’s redefine how we think of healthy, and I want to close with five points:
I'm not dismissing nutritional therapy. I'm not dismissing the importance of exercise or how we move our bodies. I'm not dismissing supplements and lab testing. If we take a holistic, full-body approach to caring for ourselves - body, mind, and spirit- then these things will only take us so far. Go a step further We’re all different, and our paths to health and healing will all be different; this is what bio-individuality is, so I encourage you to be a free thinker, a critical thinker and have moments of self-observation with non-judgment to get a big-picture view of what’s really going on and what you really need. Let go of the idea that health is determined by clothing size, what the scale says, or how much we work out. There's so much more to health than this; we need to break this narrative that society has imparted to us. Invest in your health because health is wealth, and everything is connected. Focus less on what we can't control. There are so many things in this world we don't have control over, but we can control what's happening in ourselves. That’s an indirect quote, Michelle Obama. While there are many things we can’t control, we can control what's going on in our minds, bodies, and spirits. So, it's important to make time for yourself. Put yourself on your calendar - every single day. Schedule it, protect that time slot, and make time for your self-care a priority.
I want to introduce you to something new that I'm offering. It's called the Healthy by Human Design Playbook. If you've had a human design reading with me, then you know that with every reading, I provide a PDF that outlines and documents everything from your design that we talked about in your session.
Well, this playbook goes a step further. While I still do live readings in three levels, just because it's impossible to cover everything in a single session, I originally structured it this way because I didn’t want someone to be overwhelmed.
I've realized that who am I to determine what overwhelms someone? So, I've created a Healthy x Human Design Playbook, which is an ebook that explains all of the main parts of your design and provides practical, actionable tips to align each part to your daily life - and it also includes healthy living tips that are tailored to your health top health concerns.
The playbook covers your Type, Strategy and Authority, Profile Lines, Signature and Not-Self, your gates and channels, Incarnation Cross, and the Variables - Determination, Cognition, Motivation, and View.
The Variables are very interesting because my podcast episodes have the most downloads.
The playbook s available as a standalone offering, but you also have the opportunity to add on a Human Design pre-recorded or live reading - you pick which level - one, two, or three.
My goal in designing my service offerings is to make Human Design accessible and consumable and provide options for learning and integrating it.
And then, after your playbook and/or reading, there are opportunities for private sessions for further coaching.
You can find all the details on my website at www.livefablife.com/services.
Thank you for sticking with me after skipping a few weeks here and there. I may need to skip a week or two here or there, but I know plenty of new episodes are in the works.
Thank you for being here. As always, I appreciate your time and attention and will see you back again next time. Bye for now.
Naomi Nakamura is a Health x Human Design coach who’s creating a healthier society through aligned energy.
She blends a bespoke mix of Functional Nutrition and Human Design to help others shift into alignment to leverage and correctly manage their energy to support their body, mind, and spirit.
She believes that when we embrace our authenticity and lean into our bio-individuality, we naturally live a life of freedom, empowerment, and optimal health.
Naomi resides in the San Francisco Bay Area and can often be found exploring the area with her puppy girl, Coco Pop!
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