November 13, 2023 • 22 mins
Send me a text if you liked this episode.
In this talk, I explore several dimensions of health beyond just the physical.
Let me reflect on my background growing up in a violent household and how it affected my health-related behaviors.
I want to highlighting the interconnection between our biological, psychological, and social aspects.
Let me share what I know about emotional eating, body dysmorphia, addiction, stress,
and inflammation of the brain and gut.
I cannot over emphasise the significance of practicing mindful eating, establishing strong personal boundaries, and nurturing oneself.
How do you achieve radical self-responsibility?
Start with minor changes that lead to a healthier you and overall well-being.
The information shared in this podcast does not substitute working with your primary health care provider; it is general in nature and not considered personalised advice.
Visit us online for more information or if you wish to work with Dr Holland.
thehollandclinic.com
For your daily dose of women's health related info and ideas on how to gracefully live through health and wellbeing transitions your body experiences, visit our Instagram
instagram.com/thehollandclinic
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Good morning, gorgeous.
(00:01):
Oh, just had a very emotionallycharged consultation with one of
my overseas patients.
And I wanted to share with youthis morning, if you're a woman
and you are over the age of 35,And you have decided that you're
drawing that line in the sand.
You are sick and tired of yourold systems, your old paradigms,
(00:24):
your old ways of thinking, yourold ways of living.
Yeah.
And you're wanting to take careof yourself.
I'm here to tell you that healthis bio psycho social.
So as somebody that grew up inan extremely violent household
with an abusive father, highfunctioning alcoholic parents my
(00:46):
dad was a military man.
He was trained in the thespecial forces in the British
army.
He had massive amounts of PTSD.
My mother was not his firstwife.
He'd been through a number ofrelationships previous.
He'd had other children.
He'd run away from Europe andhe'd started a family in Africa.
But unfortunately, he wasextremely...
(01:07):
He must have been in so muchpain because he created an
environment where it was veryunsafe for my nervous system as
a little girl growing up in thathome.
I absolutely loved my father.
But he certainly was a Jekylland Hyde there would be one
moment where he'd take you bythe hand and he'd be talking
about the fairies in the gardenand the next minute you'd be
(01:29):
doing drown training in the pooland I know that he thought that
he was doing the best thing forus, but it was extremely, it was
a crazy environment to havegrown up in needless to say, if
he didn't get the piece ofchicken, That he wanted at the
dinner table, he would behavelike a three year old and
suddenly, my mother, my sisterand I would find ourselves
(01:50):
underneath the dining room tableand there'd be plates and knives
and forks and dishes crashingagainst the walls and windows
would be broken.
So it was quite a traumatic,violent household to grow up in.
But that's what my nervoussystem got used to.
And this is the point that I'mtrying to make.
Health is biopsychosocial.
(02:10):
So I see hundreds of women in myclinic in Melbourne, Australia,
I'm in my third decade ofclinical practice, so it's safe
to say that I've seen thousandsand I'm here to tell you that if
you are using your food or yourbooze or your glass of wine as
medicine, if you are going to itdriven by an emotion other than
(02:34):
true hunger, you are using yourfood and your wine as medicine
and that is a problem.
But I'm not here to judge you.
I'm a recovering food addict andI completely understand.
We are so clever.
Our bodies are so clever.
They know how to use thesemechanisms.
Sugar is as good as a cocainehit.
Sugar addiction is as difficultto break as cocaine, right?
(02:57):
They've said that in theliterature.
So we go for the foods that aregoing to give us that hit.
We go for those drug like foodsubstances.
So things like baked goods,sugar.
Alcohol dairy, they're all, theyall give us those dopamine hits.
They give us that hit.
So please be very mindful of thefact that your nervous system
(03:19):
may be needing a little love anda little care.
And it is the simplest thingsthat are the hardest things to
do, right?
But they are so easy tointegrate into your life when
you know how to do them.
So I'm encouraging you to do thebreath work.
I'm encouraging you to breathe.
You can do something as simpleas lie down on your back and
watch your belly rise and fallon the in and the out breath.
(03:42):
In clinical practice.
This is what I tell my patients.
I lie them down on the bed.
Once we've discussed all of thepsycho bio social impacts on
their health, we do the somaticwork.
So they lie down on the bed.
I pop the acupuncture needles inand it's about breathing in and
breathing out and bringing thatawareness to a belly rising and
your belly falling.
And when those thoughts come in,you use a mood, moving
(04:05):
meditation, whatever works foryou.
But basically I love to say,attach those thoughts to that
cloud and let them float on outof here.
It is a really interestingphenomenon that women over the
age of 35, from this pointonwards, perimenopausally and
menopausally, our ACE scorecomes back to tap us on the
shoulder and it asks us to dothe work.
(04:28):
And I cannot tell you how manytimes in clinical practice this
comes out in terms of women Notnecessarily having strong
personal boundaries due to theiroriginal wiring due to their
original nervous system wiring.
So I grew up in a home that wasunsafe.
There was so much abuse.
There was so much trauma.
And like I said to you, I lovedmy daddy, as a little girl, I
(04:50):
absolutely loved him.
Despite the fact that one momenthe'd be holding my hand and
taking care of me.
And the next moment, he'd beusing a cattle whip on me and
beating me to a pulp and doingthe same to my mom in front of
me.
So traumatic, very traumatic.
So very high a score.
So my family of origin teachingstaught me that I needed to be
(05:13):
with a man that created thatsame environment for me.
So unfortunately what happenedis that I was attracted to men
that were.
Emotionally unavailable andabusive, so not necessarily
physically abusive, but verypsycho, emotionally abusive
things like, Oh honey, youbetter not wear those jeans,
your bum actually doesn't lookbig in that without being asked
(05:36):
the question, baby, does my bumlook big in this?
Cause I know we've all asked itwhether it's to ourselves or to
the other, right?
So yeah, emotionallyunavailable, abusive,
manipulative men.
However, that is not veryobvious to a young woman when
she leaves the family of originwith those sorts of beginnings.
(05:57):
But there came a day and time inmy life where I was like, what
is my role to play?
In this experience, right?
What is my role to play in thisexperience?
I had to take radicalresponsibility for myself and
radical action.
I needed to do the work I neededto go in and I needed to see
(06:18):
what it was.
I was trying to do, I was tryingto fix my dad.
I was trying to save my dad.
So of course I was attracted to,men that were like my father,
thank goodness.
None of them beat me to a pulp,but I've already had enough of
that in my childhood.
But my nervous system felt safein a relationship that wasn't
good for me, right?
(06:38):
So I needed to come to thatawareness first.
So again, health is biopsychosocial.
And now as a recovered foodaddict.
Of course, it wasn't, I wasn'tcognizant of what I was doing at
the time.
It wasn't conscious.
So I would sit on the bed andovereat things like raisin bran.
Do you know how hard it is toovereat raisin bran?
(07:01):
That stuff hurts, right?
But listen to this.
In traditional Chinese medicine,we talk about the fact that our
earth element is our gut.
So one of the ways that we earthourselves is to fill that earth
element.
So this is what I'm talkingabout when I'm talking about
using your food as medicine.
So if you are using your food asmedicine to feel grounded or to
(07:24):
feel earthed, there isabsolutely no shame.
I'm not here to shame you.
I'm just here to say Bring theawareness to the behavior,
because if you're using yourfood and particularly the foods
that are deleterious for yourhealth long term sugar, white
flour, alcohol, too much dairy,then I want you to become
mindful of how you eat, sleep,move, think, supplement or
(07:49):
other, right?
And I want you to think aboutit, ask yourself that question
before you put anything in yourmouth.
For the next day, for the nexthour, for the next week, ask
yourself, am I hungry?
Am I truly hungry?
Is this true hunger?
And if you're not sure, have aglass of water, have a glass of
water with some salt in it and alittle squeeze of lemon and a
(08:09):
teaspoon of maple syrup.
Make a beautiful electrolytedrink.
We know that women over the ageof 35 don't have enough
electrolytes and that impactsour energy level.
So ask yourself, am I trulyhungry?
And if you're not, ask yourselfthe other questions.
Ask yourself, am I hungry?
Am I angry?
Am I lonely?
Am I tired?
Am I bored?
Am I frustrated?
(08:30):
Other, right?
We are meant to eat, and I knowthis is a killjoy, right?
Nobody wants to hear this.
We are meant to eat in order tolive.
We don't live to eat and don'tget me wrong.
I absolutely love food, right?
I absolutely love food and yes,it is a celebration, but I want
you to use every single meal asa beautiful nourishing
(08:53):
opportunity.
I want you to have a nutrientdense, rich blood supply.
I want you to be getting.
One gram of net protein perkilogram of ideal body weight.
I want you to eat all yourgrains and I want you to eat all
of your vegetables, and afteryou've done that, then you can
have your treat.
But don't go to your food asmedicine please.
(09:13):
I am your wellness advocate, andI'm here to say to you that once
you get a grip on your bio, yourbiochemical inflammation, after
thorough testing, your psychopsychoemotional impact on your
health.
After doing the work, aftergoing to counseling, after
taking radical responsibilityfor your choices and
understanding where they comefrom and how you make the
(09:36):
choices you do, whether they areconscious or subconscious
choices, whether they arenervous system related choices.
We know that if we have aninflammation in our gut, we have
an inflammation in our mood andour mind.
And we know that if we have aninflammation in our mood and our
mind.
We have an inflammation in ourgastrointestinal tract and
(09:59):
believe it or not, there are acouple of things that can
actually drive your hunger.
If you have that inflammation inyour gastrointestinal tract,
that can cause stomach heat andit can cause excessive hunger.
If you've been addicted to sugarand you've been using it as
medicine for a really long time,Unbeneficial bacteria feed on
sugar.
So the unbeneficial bacteria inyour gastrointestinal tract are
(10:20):
in control.
They are other than you.
Believe it or not, there aremore other cells in your body
than there are you cells.
So the unbeneficial bacteria areso clever, they can actually
call out for their food source.
So they call out for more sugarand they call out for white
flour.
So sometimes I'd like you to...
I'd like you to take a bird'seye view and just ask yourself,
is this craving me, or is thiscraving other quite often?
(10:43):
We crave things because we havea trace mineral nutrient
deficiency or a macro or a micronutrient deficiency.
So it is so important to nourishyour beautiful incubator.
This is your incredible humanincubator that houses that
incredible soul that houses thatincredible nervous system that
learned all of those ways in theworld from your family of
origin.
(11:04):
The way you think aboutyourself.
Creates your reality and thereality that you came from to
begin with, you were potentiallynot in control of because you
were a little girl, right?
Or a little boy.
So you didn't have the controlover that environment and your
nervous system got used to it.
So just because you learnedcertain things in your family of
(11:25):
origin, it doesn't necessarilymean that they are good for you
or that you choose them.
So my personal example, myfather was abusive.
He was in pain.
I don't blame him at all.
I absolutely forgive him.
Nobody wants to be the deficientdonkey, right?
Nobody.
If they could really see theirbehavior, they would not choose
to be that human being.
(11:46):
They wouldn't because they wouldhave the ability to see, they
would have the enlightenment,they would have the
understanding.
It's just not on their radar.
But what I encourage you to dotoday as a woman over the age of
35 is I want to encourage you Tobring into your awareness the
choices you're making and howyour personal reality is
creating your personality andtherefore your experience of
(12:10):
life.
And I'm also here to tell youthat you can change it.
You can start to make choicesthat are better for you.
You can start to bring theawareness to why it is you make
the choices you do, and you canchange those.
In the meantime, focus on yournutrition, focus on taking care
of yourself.
Think very carefully about Whatyou eat, how you sleep, how you
(12:31):
think, how you move, how yousupplement, your self talk.
Every single cell in your bodyis listening, right?
So every time you look at yourbody, and I'm somebody,
recovered food addict now, I'mso delighted to say, but I still
have extreme body dysmorphia.
So every time I look in themirror, if I say, Oh, I can't
(12:52):
stand my knees, or Oh, I can'tstand my elbow, whatever it is,
Because that body dysmorphiacomes up, I try to catch myself
and I say, thank you so much formy beautiful functional body.
I'm not in a wheelchair.
I can do all of the things.
So I am so grateful that I havethis incredible functional body
that allows me to have thisbeautiful human experience.
(13:15):
So many people talk about selflove.
And as a practitioner in herthird decade of clinical
practice, I can often tell youthat when women come to me, that
concept is too far away.
It feels too far away.
And I can tell you that from myown experience, when I was obese
and I had cystic acne and I wasa food addict and I was trying
to numb my feelings of painbecause I'd come from an
(13:37):
extremely dysfunctional,violent, traumatic household and
been dumped.
In a boarding school and left myown devices because my parents
didn't have any other option tothem at that point in time with
the information that they had atthe time.
And again, no judgment and lotsof forgiveness and lots of love.
(14:01):
The thing that we forget aboutwith regards to our parents and,
we've got kids too, is that it'stheir first time around perhaps,
like this is the first timethey're here and making these
decisions too.
Absolutely no judgment.
And as Eckhart Tolle talks aboutthe fact that, the addict is
just trying to move away frompain.
So when you see an addict,whether they're a food addict or
(14:23):
a shopping addict or a, analcoholic, I want you to think
about that person's inner child.
I want you to think aboutyourself at five or six or seven
years of age.
Doing the best that she couldwith the nervous system that she
had and the personal realitythat was handed to her by her
traumatic experiences.
That's the little girl thatneeds you to be kind and to be
(14:44):
gentle and to re mother.
She needs you to nurture her.
She needs you to take in anutrient dense rich blood supply
so that her energy levels arethere for her.
So that her mind and her moodand her gut and her brain and
all of her hormones are workingabundantly.
And she's not in a depressedstate because she's using food
(15:06):
like substances to numb painfulemotions.
Emotions are extremelyoverwhelming at times, but they
are incredible messengers.
They're incredible pieces ofinformation.
I encourage you to sit with,experience, view, welcome, love,
(15:27):
all of your emotions.
And in actual fact, I'd like toleave you with something else
today.
There are only two emotions.
I think in my opinion, everysingle emotion either falls into
the love category or into thefear category.
So think about it.
If you're doing something that,if you're making decisions that
(15:48):
aren't great for yourself, stopyourself and ask yourself, what
would love do?
And then before you selfmedicate.
If it's too far away to, dropthat vice entirely, if it feels
too difficult to drop thealcohol entirely, if it feels
too difficult to drop the sugarentirely first, nourish your
body, your mind, your soul, yourmicrobiome first eat three cups
(16:10):
of green, one cup of color, andthen 200 grams of high quality
protein, or one gram of netprotein per ideal body weight.
First do that, right?
If you actually have a littletreat after your meal, Your
blood glucose levels won't riseas much and you won't spike that
insulin.
So you won't get yourself intothat metabolic resistance or
that fat store state as opposedto fat burn.
(16:32):
A fat burn state is the statewhere we are able to maintain
our beautiful ideal body weight,where we are able to create all
of the energy that we need forour brains and our bodies all
day long to fire.
At 150 miles an hour, if we needto.
Okay.
So like I said, I am yourwellness advocate.
(16:53):
I am not here to judge you.
I'm here to love you intowellness.
I am here to help you with themicro changes, right?
Health is bio psycho social.
And what else did I want to say?
Yeah.
Make sure that before you eat,you ask yourself, am I truly
hungry or am I using food likesubstances?
Because I am angry, lonely,tired, frustrated.
(17:17):
Bored other right nourish yourbeautiful body and your
beautiful mind Remember that ifyou have an inflammation in the
brain So if you're stressed outif you haven't been sleeping if
you're stressed out by a familymember if you're stressed out by
something that happened in yourfamily of origin, you're going
to have an inflammation in yourgut too, because through your
nervous system and the vasovagalnerve, the two are absolutely
(17:40):
connected.
So the grounding exercises liketaking your shoes off and going
for a walk outside in the grass,the breathing, all of those
things will help bring yournervous system back online.
And then once you are, once youhave the awareness, you can
start to make better choices andyou can start to make those
changes.
So that you can truly live alife of freedom and you can
(18:03):
truly live a life where you arenot bound by or controlled by
anyone, a substance, yourmother, your father, your
sister, your lover, yournarcissistic partner, your
inappropriate relationship,whatever it may be.
Don't necessarily judge it.
Forgive yourself for beinghuman, right?
(18:25):
And start to bring the awarenessand then take radical
responsibility for yourself.
I'm talking about absolutelyradical responsibility and be
completely aware of the partthat you play in your life and
think about how you think.
So I want you to be reallymindful about.
(18:46):
What you eat, how you sleep, howyou think, how you move, how you
supplement and then ask yourselfthose questions.
Am I truly hungry or am I bored?
Am I tired?
Am I lonely?
Am I frustrated?
Am I using my food as medicineor am I using my food to fuel
this incredible body?
And please remember that nothingis everything is connected.
(19:10):
Absolutely everything isconnected.
So your.
Your relationship with yourpartner impacts your health.
Your relationship with foodimpacts your health.
Your relationship with yourselfimpacts your health.
Your relationship with your jobimpacts your health.
I see women that come into myclinic that hate their jobs, and
I'm here to tell you that theirhormones are a mess, and could
(19:32):
potentially be that way justbecause of that.
And I'm not...
Oh, there goes the babyschnautzy.
Lulu, that's enough.
That's okay, baby.
And yeah, so all of thosegoodies I've been ranting on.
I'm your wellness advocate.
I'm here for you.
If any of this resonated for youtoday, and you know that you
need to do the work and you needa cheerleader that's going to
(19:52):
help you with those microchanges and support you gently
through the process withoutjudgment and with love as a
recovering food addict.
And as somebody that has topractice this every single day
of her life.
You can't fail.
I'm here to tell you that youcannot fail.
80, 20 baby, according to thebasic mathematics, you're going
to win.
So 80 percent of the time makethose incredibly beautiful
(20:14):
choices have the three cups ofgreen, the one cup of color, the
200 grams of high qualityprotein, right?
And then 20 percent of the time,your body can handle those party
substances and those partyfoods.
I also live a very practicallife.
I'm here to tell you.
I have a love of my life now,finally, because I took radical
responsibility about my part toplay in attracting narcissistic
(20:36):
assholes into my life.
So that's a thing of the past.
Hallelujah.
I'm now engaged to be married inFebruary, 2024 to the love of my
life, who is the kindest, mostbeautiful man on the planet.
And even when he annoys me anddrives me crazy, I still love
him.
And we have three teenagers, 16,17, 18.
It's a busy household, two dogs,I've got the practical tools and
(20:59):
tricks to help you, and I've gotthe understanding of not only my
own personal experience, I haveabsolutely lived this, but I
understand the theoreticalconstructs behind it.
My name is Dr.
Kirstey Holland.
I'm the founder and principalpractitioner of the Holland
Clinic in Melbourne, Australia.
I'm a doctor of traditionalChinese medicine with a double
degree of acupuncture and herbalmed.
I'm a naturopath.
(21:20):
I'm a practitioner ofenvironmental and nutritional
medicine.
I'm a functional medicalpractitioner and I have been
nominated as health and wellnesscoach of the decade.
And my program rescuing you fromthe rollercoaster of
perimenopause has been nominatedas program of the year 2023,
2024.
So if you need help, book yourfree clarity call today, let's
(21:42):
get this happening, take iteasy, have a beautiful day.
Good morning, gorgeous.
(00:01):
Oh, just had a very emotionallycharged consultation with one of
my overseas patients.
And I wanted to share with youthis morning, if you're a woman
and you are over the age of 35,And you have decided that you're
drawing that line in the sand.
You are sick and tired of yourold systems, your old paradigms,
(00:24):
your old ways of thinking, yourold ways of living.
Yeah.
And you're wanting to take careof yourself.
I'm here to tell you that healthis bio psycho social.
So as somebody that grew up inan extremely violent household
with an abusive father, highfunctioning alcoholic parents my
(00:46):
dad was a military man.
He was trained in the thespecial forces in the British
army.
He had massive amounts of PTSD.
My mother was not his firstwife.
He'd been through a number ofrelationships previous.
He'd had other children.
He'd run away from Europe andhe'd started a family in Africa.
But unfortunately, he wasextremely...
(01:07):
He must have been in so muchpain because he created an
environment where it was veryunsafe for my nervous system as
a little girl growing up in thathome.
I absolutely loved my father.
But he certainly was a Jekylland Hyde there would be one
moment where he'd take you bythe hand and he'd be talking
about the fairies in the gardenand the next minute you'd be
(01:29):
doing drown training in the pooland I know that he thought that
he was doing the best thing forus, but it was extremely, it was
a crazy environment to havegrown up in needless to say, if
he didn't get the piece ofchicken, That he wanted at the
dinner table, he would behavelike a three year old and
suddenly, my mother, my sisterand I would find ourselves
(01:50):
underneath the dining room tableand there'd be plates and knives
and forks and dishes crashingagainst the walls and windows
would be broken.
So it was quite a traumatic,violent household to grow up in.
But that's what my nervoussystem got used to.
And this is the point that I'mtrying to make.
Health is biopsychosocial.
(02:10):
So I see hundreds of women in myclinic in Melbourne, Australia,
I'm in my third decade ofclinical practice, so it's safe
to say that I've seen thousandsand I'm here to tell you that if
you are using your food or yourbooze or your glass of wine as
medicine, if you are going to itdriven by an emotion other than
(02:34):
true hunger, you are using yourfood and your wine as medicine
and that is a problem.
But I'm not here to judge you.
I'm a recovering food addict andI completely understand.
We are so clever.
Our bodies are so clever.
They know how to use thesemechanisms.
Sugar is as good as a cocainehit.
Sugar addiction is as difficultto break as cocaine, right?
(02:57):
They've said that in theliterature.
So we go for the foods that aregoing to give us that hit.
We go for those drug like foodsubstances.
So things like baked goods,sugar.
Alcohol dairy, they're all, theyall give us those dopamine hits.
They give us that hit.
So please be very mindful of thefact that your nervous system
(03:19):
may be needing a little love anda little care.
And it is the simplest thingsthat are the hardest things to
do, right?
But they are so easy tointegrate into your life when
you know how to do them.
So I'm encouraging you to do thebreath work.
I'm encouraging you to breathe.
You can do something as simpleas lie down on your back and
watch your belly rise and fallon the in and the out breath.
(03:42):
In clinical practice.
This is what I tell my patients.
I lie them down on the bed.
Once we've discussed all of thepsycho bio social impacts on
their health, we do the somaticwork.
So they lie down on the bed.
I pop the acupuncture needles inand it's about breathing in and
breathing out and bringing thatawareness to a belly rising and
your belly falling.
And when those thoughts come in,you use a mood, moving
(04:05):
meditation, whatever works foryou.
But basically I love to say,attach those thoughts to that
cloud and let them float on outof here.
It is a really interestingphenomenon that women over the
age of 35, from this pointonwards, perimenopausally and
menopausally, our ACE scorecomes back to tap us on the
shoulder and it asks us to dothe work.
(04:28):
And I cannot tell you how manytimes in clinical practice this
comes out in terms of women Notnecessarily having strong
personal boundaries due to theiroriginal wiring due to their
original nervous system wiring.
So I grew up in a home that wasunsafe.
There was so much abuse.
There was so much trauma.
And like I said to you, I lovedmy daddy, as a little girl, I
(04:50):
absolutely loved him.
Despite the fact that one momenthe'd be holding my hand and
taking care of me.
And the next moment, he'd beusing a cattle whip on me and
beating me to a pulp and doingthe same to my mom in front of
me.
So traumatic, very traumatic.
So very high a score.
So my family of origin teachingstaught me that I needed to be
(05:13):
with a man that created thatsame environment for me.
So unfortunately what happenedis that I was attracted to men
that were.
Emotionally unavailable andabusive, so not necessarily
physically abusive, but verypsycho, emotionally abusive
things like, Oh honey, youbetter not wear those jeans,
your bum actually doesn't lookbig in that without being asked
(05:36):
the question, baby, does my bumlook big in this?
Cause I know we've all asked itwhether it's to ourselves or to
the other, right?
So yeah, emotionallyunavailable, abusive,
manipulative men.
However, that is not veryobvious to a young woman when
she leaves the family of originwith those sorts of beginnings.
(05:57):
But there came a day and time inmy life where I was like, what
is my role to play?
In this experience, right?
What is my role to play in thisexperience?
I had to take radicalresponsibility for myself and
radical action.
I needed to do the work I neededto go in and I needed to see
(06:18):
what it was.
I was trying to do, I was tryingto fix my dad.
I was trying to save my dad.
So of course I was attracted to,men that were like my father,
thank goodness.
None of them beat me to a pulp,but I've already had enough of
that in my childhood.
But my nervous system felt safein a relationship that wasn't
good for me, right?
(06:38):
So I needed to come to thatawareness first.
So again, health is biopsychosocial.
And now as a recovered foodaddict.
Of course, it wasn't, I wasn'tcognizant of what I was doing at
the time.
It wasn't conscious.
So I would sit on the bed andovereat things like raisin bran.
Do you know how hard it is toovereat raisin bran?
(07:01):
That stuff hurts, right?
But listen to this.
In traditional Chinese medicine,we talk about the fact that our
earth element is our gut.
So one of the ways that we earthourselves is to fill that earth
element.
So this is what I'm talkingabout when I'm talking about
using your food as medicine.
So if you are using your food asmedicine to feel grounded or to
(07:24):
feel earthed, there isabsolutely no shame.
I'm not here to shame you.
I'm just here to say Bring theawareness to the behavior,
because if you're using yourfood and particularly the foods
that are deleterious for yourhealth long term sugar, white
flour, alcohol, too much dairy,then I want you to become
mindful of how you eat, sleep,move, think, supplement or
(07:49):
other, right?
And I want you to think aboutit, ask yourself that question
before you put anything in yourmouth.
For the next day, for the nexthour, for the next week, ask
yourself, am I hungry?
Am I truly hungry?
Is this true hunger?
And if you're not sure, have aglass of water, have a glass of
water with some salt in it and alittle squeeze of lemon and a
(08:09):
teaspoon of maple syrup.
Make a beautiful electrolytedrink.
We know that women over the ageof 35 don't have enough
electrolytes and that impactsour energy level.
So ask yourself, am I trulyhungry?
And if you're not, ask yourselfthe other questions.
Ask yourself, am I hungry?
Am I angry?
Am I lonely?
Am I tired?
Am I bored?
Am I frustrated?
(08:30):
Other, right?
We are meant to eat, and I knowthis is a killjoy, right?
Nobody wants to hear this.
We are meant to eat in order tolive.
We don't live to eat and don'tget me wrong.
I absolutely love food, right?
I absolutely love food and yes,it is a celebration, but I want
you to use every single meal asa beautiful nourishing
(08:53):
opportunity.
I want you to have a nutrientdense, rich blood supply.
I want you to be getting.
One gram of net protein perkilogram of ideal body weight.
I want you to eat all yourgrains and I want you to eat all
of your vegetables, and afteryou've done that, then you can
have your treat.
But don't go to your food asmedicine please.
(09:13):
I am your wellness advocate, andI'm here to say to you that once
you get a grip on your bio, yourbiochemical inflammation, after
thorough testing, your psychopsychoemotional impact on your
health.
After doing the work, aftergoing to counseling, after
taking radical responsibilityfor your choices and
understanding where they comefrom and how you make the
(09:36):
choices you do, whether they areconscious or subconscious
choices, whether they arenervous system related choices.
We know that if we have aninflammation in our gut, we have
an inflammation in our mood andour mind.
And we know that if we have aninflammation in our mood and our
mind.
We have an inflammation in ourgastrointestinal tract and
(09:59):
believe it or not, there are acouple of things that can
actually drive your hunger.
If you have that inflammation inyour gastrointestinal tract,
that can cause stomach heat andit can cause excessive hunger.
If you've been addicted to sugarand you've been using it as
medicine for a really long time,Unbeneficial bacteria feed on
sugar.
So the unbeneficial bacteria inyour gastrointestinal tract are
(10:20):
in control.
They are other than you.
Believe it or not, there aremore other cells in your body
than there are you cells.
So the unbeneficial bacteria areso clever, they can actually
call out for their food source.
So they call out for more sugarand they call out for white
flour.
So sometimes I'd like you to...
I'd like you to take a bird'seye view and just ask yourself,
is this craving me, or is thiscraving other quite often?
(10:43):
We crave things because we havea trace mineral nutrient
deficiency or a macro or a micronutrient deficiency.
So it is so important to nourishyour beautiful incubator.
This is your incredible humanincubator that houses that
incredible soul that houses thatincredible nervous system that
learned all of those ways in theworld from your family of
origin.
(11:04):
The way you think aboutyourself.
Creates your reality and thereality that you came from to
begin with, you were potentiallynot in control of because you
were a little girl, right?
Or a little boy.
So you didn't have the controlover that environment and your
nervous system got used to it.
So just because you learnedcertain things in your family of
(11:25):
origin, it doesn't necessarilymean that they are good for you
or that you choose them.
So my personal example, myfather was abusive.
He was in pain.
I don't blame him at all.
I absolutely forgive him.
Nobody wants to be the deficientdonkey, right?
Nobody.
If they could really see theirbehavior, they would not choose
to be that human being.
(11:46):
They wouldn't because they wouldhave the ability to see, they
would have the enlightenment,they would have the
understanding.
It's just not on their radar.
But what I encourage you to dotoday as a woman over the age of
35 is I want to encourage you Tobring into your awareness the
choices you're making and howyour personal reality is
creating your personality andtherefore your experience of
(12:10):
life.
And I'm also here to tell youthat you can change it.
You can start to make choicesthat are better for you.
You can start to bring theawareness to why it is you make
the choices you do, and you canchange those.
In the meantime, focus on yournutrition, focus on taking care
of yourself.
Think very carefully about Whatyou eat, how you sleep, how you
(12:31):
think, how you move, how yousupplement, your self talk.
Every single cell in your bodyis listening, right?
So every time you look at yourbody, and I'm somebody,
recovered food addict now, I'mso delighted to say, but I still
have extreme body dysmorphia.
So every time I look in themirror, if I say, Oh, I can't
(12:52):
stand my knees, or Oh, I can'tstand my elbow, whatever it is,
Because that body dysmorphiacomes up, I try to catch myself
and I say, thank you so much formy beautiful functional body.
I'm not in a wheelchair.
I can do all of the things.
So I am so grateful that I havethis incredible functional body
that allows me to have thisbeautiful human experience.
(13:15):
So many people talk about selflove.
And as a practitioner in herthird decade of clinical
practice, I can often tell youthat when women come to me, that
concept is too far away.
It feels too far away.
And I can tell you that from myown experience, when I was obese
and I had cystic acne and I wasa food addict and I was trying
to numb my feelings of painbecause I'd come from an
(13:37):
extremely dysfunctional,violent, traumatic household and
been dumped.
In a boarding school and left myown devices because my parents
didn't have any other option tothem at that point in time with
the information that they had atthe time.
And again, no judgment and lotsof forgiveness and lots of love.
(14:01):
The thing that we forget aboutwith regards to our parents and,
we've got kids too, is that it'stheir first time around perhaps,
like this is the first timethey're here and making these
decisions too.
Absolutely no judgment.
And as Eckhart Tolle talks aboutthe fact that, the addict is
just trying to move away frompain.
So when you see an addict,whether they're a food addict or
(14:23):
a shopping addict or a, analcoholic, I want you to think
about that person's inner child.
I want you to think aboutyourself at five or six or seven
years of age.
Doing the best that she couldwith the nervous system that she
had and the personal realitythat was handed to her by her
traumatic experiences.
That's the little girl thatneeds you to be kind and to be
(14:44):
gentle and to re mother.
She needs you to nurture her.
She needs you to take in anutrient dense rich blood supply
so that her energy levels arethere for her.
So that her mind and her moodand her gut and her brain and
all of her hormones are workingabundantly.
And she's not in a depressedstate because she's using food
(15:06):
like substances to numb painfulemotions.
Emotions are extremelyoverwhelming at times, but they
are incredible messengers.
They're incredible pieces ofinformation.
I encourage you to sit with,experience, view, welcome, love,
(15:27):
all of your emotions.
And in actual fact, I'd like toleave you with something else
today.
There are only two emotions.
I think in my opinion, everysingle emotion either falls into
the love category or into thefear category.
So think about it.
If you're doing something that,if you're making decisions that
(15:48):
aren't great for yourself, stopyourself and ask yourself, what
would love do?
And then before you selfmedicate.
If it's too far away to, dropthat vice entirely, if it feels
too difficult to drop thealcohol entirely, if it feels
too difficult to drop the sugarentirely first, nourish your
body, your mind, your soul, yourmicrobiome first eat three cups
(16:10):
of green, one cup of color, andthen 200 grams of high quality
protein, or one gram of netprotein per ideal body weight.
First do that, right?
If you actually have a littletreat after your meal, Your
blood glucose levels won't riseas much and you won't spike that
insulin.
So you won't get yourself intothat metabolic resistance or
that fat store state as opposedto fat burn.
(16:32):
A fat burn state is the statewhere we are able to maintain
our beautiful ideal body weight,where we are able to create all
of the energy that we need forour brains and our bodies all
day long to fire.
At 150 miles an hour, if we needto.
Okay.
So like I said, I am yourwellness advocate.
(16:53):
I am not here to judge you.
I'm here to love you intowellness.
I am here to help you with themicro changes, right?
Health is bio psycho social.
And what else did I want to say?
Yeah.
Make sure that before you eat,you ask yourself, am I truly
hungry or am I using food likesubstances?
Because I am angry, lonely,tired, frustrated.
(17:17):
Bored other right nourish yourbeautiful body and your
beautiful mind Remember that ifyou have an inflammation in the
brain So if you're stressed outif you haven't been sleeping if
you're stressed out by a familymember if you're stressed out by
something that happened in yourfamily of origin, you're going
to have an inflammation in yourgut too, because through your
nervous system and the vasovagalnerve, the two are absolutely
(17:40):
connected.
So the grounding exercises liketaking your shoes off and going
for a walk outside in the grass,the breathing, all of those
things will help bring yournervous system back online.
And then once you are, once youhave the awareness, you can
start to make better choices andyou can start to make those
changes.
So that you can truly live alife of freedom and you can
(18:03):
truly live a life where you arenot bound by or controlled by
anyone, a substance, yourmother, your father, your
sister, your lover, yournarcissistic partner, your
inappropriate relationship,whatever it may be.
Don't necessarily judge it.
Forgive yourself for beinghuman, right?
(18:25):
And start to bring the awarenessand then take radical
responsibility for yourself.
I'm talking about absolutelyradical responsibility and be
completely aware of the partthat you play in your life and
think about how you think.
So I want you to be reallymindful about.
(18:46):
What you eat, how you sleep, howyou think, how you move, how you
supplement and then ask yourselfthose questions.
Am I truly hungry or am I bored?
Am I tired?
Am I lonely?
Am I frustrated?
Am I using my food as medicineor am I using my food to fuel
this incredible body?
And please remember that nothingis everything is connected.
(19:10):
Absolutely everything isconnected.
So your.
Your relationship with yourpartner impacts your health.
Your relationship with foodimpacts your health.
Your relationship with yourselfimpacts your health.
Your relationship with your jobimpacts your health.
I see women that come into myclinic that hate their jobs, and
I'm here to tell you that theirhormones are a mess, and could
(19:32):
potentially be that way justbecause of that.
And I'm not...
Oh, there goes the babyschnautzy.
Lulu, that's enough.
That's okay, baby.
And yeah, so all of thosegoodies I've been ranting on.
I'm your wellness advocate.
I'm here for you.
If any of this resonated for youtoday, and you know that you
need to do the work and you needa cheerleader that's going to
(19:52):
help you with those microchanges and support you gently
through the process withoutjudgment and with love as a
recovering food addict.
And as somebody that has topractice this every single day
of her life.
You can't fail.
I'm here to tell you that youcannot fail.
80, 20 baby, according to thebasic mathematics, you're going
to win.
So 80 percent of the time makethose incredibly beautiful
(20:14):
choices have the three cups ofgreen, the one cup of color, the
200 grams of high qualityprotein, right?
And then 20 percent of the time,your body can handle those party
substances and those partyfoods.
I also live a very practicallife.
I'm here to tell you.
I have a love of my life now,finally, because I took radical
responsibility about my part toplay in attracting narcissistic
(20:36):
assholes into my life.
So that's a thing of the past.
Hallelujah.
I'm now engaged to be married inFebruary, 2024 to the love of my
life, who is the kindest, mostbeautiful man on the planet.
And even when he annoys me anddrives me crazy, I still love
him.
And we have three teenagers, 16,17, 18.
It's a busy household, two dogs,I've got the practical tools and
(20:59):
tricks to help you, and I've gotthe understanding of not only my
own personal experience, I haveabsolutely lived this, but I
understand the theoreticalconstructs behind it.
My name is Dr.
Kirstey Holland.
I'm the founder and principalpractitioner of the Holland
Clinic in Melbourne, Australia.
I'm a doctor of traditionalChinese medicine with a double
degree of acupuncture and herbalmed.
I'm a naturopath.
(21:20):
I'm a practitioner ofenvironmental and nutritional
medicine.
I'm a functional medicalpractitioner and I have been
nominated as health and wellnesscoach of the decade.
And my program rescuing you fromthe rollercoaster of
perimenopause has been nominatedas program of the year 2023,
2024.
So if you need help, book yourfree clarity call today, let's
(21:42):
get this happening, take iteasy, have a beautiful day.
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