Episode 91: Finding Your Functional Foods

The content of this podcast has not been evaluated by Health Canada or the FDA. It is educational in nature and should not be taken as medical advice. Always consult a qualified medical professional to see if a diet, lifestyle change, or supplement is right for you. Any supplements mentioned are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Please note that the opinions of the guests or hosts are their own and may not reflect those of Advanced Orthomolecular Research, Inc.

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Welcome to Supplementing Health, a podcast presented by Advanced Orthomolecular Research. We are all about applying evidence based and effective dietary lifestyle and natural health product strategies for your optimal health. In each episode, we will feature very engaging clinicians and experts from the world of functional and naturopathic medicine to help achieve our mission to empower people to lead their best lives naturally.

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[01:10] Dr. Nirat Nibber, ND: Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Supplementing Health. I am very excited today because we have with us Risa Groux, a certified nutritionist, who is taking on a whole new world of functional food medicine and really applying holistic principles to food and health and overall wellness. We are really excited to talk to you today.

[01:40] Risa Groux: Yes, thank you so much for having me. I am really excited to be here.

[01:44] Dr. Nirat Nibber, ND: A lot of our listeners are very mindful of what they are consuming and their health in general, but would you say is the difference between functional foods and just –

[02:05] Risa Groux: Great question. I am a functional nutritionist. I am certified as a clinical nutritionist, but I am a functional nutritionist because I have done extensive training in functional medicine and functional nutrition meaning that we are always looking at root causes. We don’t believe that there is a pill for an ill, we believe that there is something driving an illness. We look at the whole body as a unit verses each appendage or each different area of the body not intersecting as a whole unit. The other thing we do with functional nutrition is that we look at prevention. We look at preventing disease before it already gets there whereas conventional medicine is looking a little bit more at treating a disease when you already have it. With that definition in place of who I am and that is how I look at things. Functional foods are foods that basically work for you verses eating foods that are not necessarily helping you. I categorise them into two different categories. One I call food for sport and the other I call food for survival. I believe that if we eat more food for survival and less food for sport we are going to thrive.

[03:20] Risa Groux: We are going to thrive and survive. We have so many chemicals in our system. Here in America the FDA has approved 86,000 chemicals that is an amazing number of chemicals that we are allowed to eat, over 3000 of which we can consume and then the other ones we can breathe and put on our skin which we are doing day in and day out. No other country has as many as we do. We are completely attacked by chemicals all the time. Functional foods are foods that your body knows what to do with it. it knows how to process it. It was actually built for that. I say to each new client that I work with that I want you to imagine that your body is like a sneaker factory, right? You have all of the equipment to make sneakers. If I give you leather, rubber or canvas I know we are going to get a sneaker at the end. It may change in shape or size or colour, but it is going to be a sneaker. If I say to you let’s put some cell phone parts in your sneaker factory, what would you say? Most people would say that wouldn’t work. Imagine if we did put cell phone parts in a sneaker factory. We would start to break down that equipment. That is a very loose example of what we are doing to our bodies. Our bodies were well born and well equipped to eat foods that we are supposed to eat things that were crawling from the ground and spreading from the earth. All of a sudden, we started adding chemicals and our bodies don’t know how to eat those foods. It doesn’t know how to process those foods. It does a lot of destruction. Our liver has to convert it into enzymes that it knows what to do with it and the kidney has to clear it through the system. There is a lot of work that entails from eating foods that are not functional and a lot of destruction in their wake. I am all about eating foods for survival and less for sport.

[05:16] Dr. Nirat Nibber, ND: I love that you break it down into these, you’ve amoralized it and I find that a lot of times when it comes to food there is a lot of moral association. “This is a good food. This is a bad food.” Coming with that is sometimes guilt of shame. What I love about how you have repositioned it as food for sport verses survival is that it tends to take that morality out of it. Are you finding that with that approach clients of yours are tending to stay more engaged and is there that emotional association with food?

[06:09] Risa Groux: People as a whole, I work with so many people I see between 48-50 people a week, people as a whole tend to thrive when they eat foods that are good for them. When their system is working, and they are eating foods they have a good relationship with food. I always say that eating clean is the highest form of self-respect. When you are in control you are showing your self-respect, you are eating foods that make you feel good, you are not having a constant conversation in your head saying “I can’t believe I ate that. I wasn’t going to eat that. I was planning not to eat that. Forget it, I will just eat everything I want, and I will wait until Monday or after Christmas or after my birthday or vacation.” It is a lot of banter that people have. It is this horrible relationship that we have with food when really it is just our mechanics. It is our fuel. We need fuel to function. When we are not eating that food, we have a lot of angst about it. When we do eat clean, all of a sudden that judgement and that punitive conversation that you are having in your head disappears. People feel good and then they realise that once I start putting in real fuel in my body I don’t need as much food. It is fascinating. One of my favourite things that I do in my work is to watch that lightbulb go on and watch that transformation of that relationship with food. It is fascinating.

[07:47] Dr. Nirat Nibber, ND: Absolutely. I don’t think we talk or learn enough about that relationship. It is a relationship with food and the fact that you contextualised it for your clients to be a whole-body approach and that things aren’t occurring in silos. Your conditions are just happening to one part of your body, they are happening to your whole body. Now, you’ve developed the FoodFrame method. Can you tell us a little bit more about how you were able to develop these six different groups and just expand on that a little for us?

[08:26] Risa Groux: Love to. When I was growing up, I remember my Mum and my Grandma was always on diets. “Oh, that is fattening, I can’t eat that.” Always on a diet and I didn’t understand why can’t you eat that and eat this. It was all so confusing. Then going through my life and college and I was always pretty healthy and exercised and ate fairly well but there was always maybe three or five pounds that I was always working on, right? I would go on this diet because my girlfriend told me about that diet, and she lost a bunch of weight, and I really didn’t but I would lose a bunch of weight on this diet but then somebody else didn’t. It was always fascinating to me that one size does not fit all, it is food. What I realised when I became a nutritionist and started working with tuns of people is that not everybody works with every different food. It mostly is because of your health status. If you are in an autoimmune state, you have a lot of antibodies let’s say to your thyroid, let’s say you have some Hashimoto’s, you should not be eating things like gluten or soy or dairy. Those are going to harm your situation and they are going to cause more inflammation. When there is a lot of inflammation there is no way you are going to lose weight, I shouldn’t say no way but the chances are less likely and you are going to lose much less sufficiently as you would if you were eating foods that are not causing an inflammatory response. What I realise is that we are all different. If I have somebody who walks into my office and they have got a very high level of diabetes, a lot of sugar dysregulation and they have insulin resistance I am going to recommend keto or paleo for them because that is really a very efficient way to decrease your blood sugars. I will give them some supplements for it as well, but I am going to steer them in that direction of that eating lifestyle.

[10:34] Risa Groux: Now, it probably won’t be forever. It is just until we regulate that blood sugar and then we figure out what their health status is about at that point and what else to eat and where do you go from there. There is no bad food really it is just not a perfect fit for everyone. What I created was the ability to take this test or find out what your blood test is and your stool test is and see if we have parasites or pathogens? Do we have candida? Are we having autoimmune? Do we have rheumatoid arthritis? Rheumatoid arthritis, you don’t want to be having lots of nightshades. Nightshades are highly inflammatory. They are high in lectins. They are going to cause inflammation. That person I would steer clear, and I would put them on a low lectin or an AIP, the autoimmune protocol lifestyle. We personalise everything. Now our TVs know what shows we like to watch. Our music knows what kind of music we like to watch. We should be customising our food to your particular health status. That is what I did. I broke it down and said that is how we do it. I have a ton of people who come into my office and say, “I have been doing keto for three months and I haven’t lost anything but my husband has lost 45 pounds.” You are not right for keto, right? That is why we customise it. that is what food framing does. It customises it to your health status.

[12:11] Dr. Nirat Nibber, ND: You have touched on a few really important points. One that I want to expand on a little is that you reference that there is a time period in which you do some of these potentially or more restrictive or specific diets and then there is a period where you reassess. I think that is so important for people to hear because sometimes there can be this feeling that this is indefinite. That they are on a very particular route for the rest of their life particularly if they have already had a troubled relationship with food, that ability to reassess and check back in is so important. The time period becomes really important. You also spoke to our current health status guiding some of the decisions as to where to put them in the different groups. How much are you finding that with access to genetic insights that the genetic predisposition in combination with obviously our environment and our experiences is impacting our ability to metabolise absorb utilise the nutrients from foods we are eating?

[13:35] Risa Groux: I love that you asked this question. This is the future. This is where we are going. I was just at a functional medicine conference about a month ago and all we are talking about it is genetics because we now know that our genetics are a huge roadmap for us. It doesn’t necessarily mean that is where your destination is, but it is a roadmap saying if you do not change this this is your likelihood. You could make a left instead of going straight but you need to know what it looks like. I do a lot of genetic testing in my office and in fact I met with somebody I have been working with for a long time who is the perfect example of what I mentioned earlier. She has done keto for so long as we did her genetic testing and we looked at 77 genes and power and strength and what exercise is best for her, how she does with dairy, caffeine, gluten and things like that. We looked at saturated fat and all different kinds of fat breakdown for her. I had already tested her on what we call her sciatic cap, which is your fat absorption, I can find that from a stool test. I am looking at your GGT to see if your bile is sticky and gooey in your blood test.

[14:53] Risa Groux: That will help me also to determine if you have a hard time digesting fat. She was fine on those but her genetic test showed that she doesn’t do well with high fats, and she was on keto. She was the perfect example of what I was talking about. We both kind of giggles “this is why you didn’t do well on keto for all of that time.” Genetics play a huge part in where we are going. My dream is that when my grandchildren are born, whenever that may be, that they take their blood that day and they say “here is your genetic makeup. This is what works for you. This is what doesn’t. here is your roadmap.” That is what I hope will happen for our next generation and the generation thereafter because we have the science. We know that genes play a big part. Environment is a huge – I often say that genes will load the gun, but the environment will pull the trigger. If you are exposed to mould or if you have a high stress life, if you are eating tons of gluten and dairy and high sugar and high cars, a bad diet with lots of alcohol and no sleep, that is going to pull the trigger, right? Again, it doesn’t necessarily mean that because you have these genes this is your destiny it just means that it is likely to be your destiny unless you do something about it. Now that we know we have genetic testing, we should all get our genetic testing done to find out where do we need to make that left turn? How can we prevent this? In some cases, this is how I should eat. This is what is best for my body. It is helpful information.

[16:34] Dr. Nirat Nibber, ND: As you were taking about preventative medicine, sometimes prevention and motivating people to change their behaviours now to reduce the likelihood of something happening five, 10, 15 years in the future can be challenging. Having some of these insights, I find especially for my patients, can help motivate them in seeing that long term benefit verses not having any data points. I also think it is important that you mentioned the access to genetic testing is really increasing, even testing in your office, you mentioned some of the additional stool testing and blood testing. How important do you think those lab values are to have and how regularly are you generally assessing patients?

[17:30] Risa Groux: I always say to my patients that I am not good at playing darts with the lights off. If I can’t see the target I am guessing. It is going to cause a lot of frustration on everybody’s part. I am much better when all of the lights are on, and I can see the targets clearly. That is why I do the testing. I do a very extensive comprehensive blood panel. I am looking at gene mutation, MTHFR that is a huge factor in our methylation processes and our red blood cells. I also look at all four markers of blood sugar, all ten markers of thyroid, I look at all inflammatory markers and the breakdown of white blood cells so that you can see if there is an underlying virus, cytomegalovirus or Epstein-Barr virus versus something else? Do we have things that are causing any kind of symptoms? I am always taking a deep dive that way. Then I do the stool testing. With that I am looking for about 84 pathogens, parasites, worms, fungus, candida, giardia, parasitic pathogens, I am looking at the microbiome the good and bad gut bacteria. That is at the end of the day critically important to our health. If our microbiota is not good, we are going to experience ill health. I am always looking at foundational issues, one being systemic inflammation and the other being gut health. Every person who walks into my office gets a minimum of those tests.

[18:59] Risa Groux: If I need to order further tests after I see those then we do. I do an initial when someone works through my door for the first time. Usually, three months later I am reordering the blood work and then depending on what the stool test comes back with if they are riddled with certain things, H pylori is a big one that I treat and all of the other pathogens that we are addressing, I will do that about 12-14 maybe 15 weeks later and retest on the stool test to see where we are. That is my favourite appointment. Those are the ones that we say “oh, wow, look the inflammation markers are down” or “you are no longer diabetic or prediabetic.” It is amazing. I can usually tell my symptoms and weight loss because if we are not in an inflamed state, we are losing that weight, but it is always great to see it right there in the numbers and the comparison of before and after. After that depending on how the client is we may need to do another follow up three months later or if not, it will be six months and then we will do it every year to six months thereafter to make sure they are doing okay.

[20:20] Dr. Nirat Nibber, ND: I like that there is a very unique special moment when someone sees that the hard work they have put in is serving to shift things. Oh my gosh it is a great moment.

[20:36] Risa Groux: You know that. You know that well. It is such a great thing to experience with somebody.

[20:43] Dr. Nirat Nibber, ND: Yes. Now, you’ve spoken quite a lot to your training and the conferences you have been going to as a functional medicine practitioner. How are you finding that the research is now starting to shift given that more and more people are becoming interested in functional medicine and health and taking more of a holistic approach? How do you think that is translating to the research?

[21:11] Risa Groux: That is a great question. Functional nutrition and what functional medicine looks at is the underlying root causes, as I mentioned, – covid is a great example. Let’s use covid. We have this horrendous pandemic that is going on and it is a virus. Where do viruses live? Viruses can’t live in an acidic environment. They can’t live in acid, and they can’t live in bleach. That is why I am a huge proponent of digestive enzymes. Most of us don’t have enough digestive enzymes. Most of us produce and excrete them from the time we are born to the time we die but as we age, we produce less and less. That is why I am a big proponent of it. Number one, the whole medical community of conventional medicine is always pushing antiacids if there is any kind of acid reflux of heartburn and that turns off your – you are creating a very alkalised environment. That is like putting a vacancy sign up and saying “everybody come live in my gut. I will feed you bread, sugar, dairy and alcohol and you will thrive and survive.” We really want to go the opposite way. I think we need a louder voice, whether that is more research or a louder voice as far as the gut is critical. A lot of integrative naturopaths and integrative medical docs and functional medicine docs are talking about the gut. I think that needs to be more mainstream. We don’t talk about in hospitals. We don’t talk about it in conventional medicine visits. Nobody, I shouldn’t say nobody, but very few doctors are really making the connection of what you are eating and putting in and on your body and how it is effecting that. I work with lots of doctors.

[23:07] Risa Groux: Hey come and see me as patients and they are unaware of these things. They haven’t been trained. It is not the way we do medical school. I really would love to see a shift in that. If I were to have one wish I would for sure say that is what it is. When we have lots of inflammation and we can have inflammation if we are obese, if we have blood sugar dysregulation we have inflammation, if we have any autoimmune, we have inflammation. Inflammation is a real thing, and it is a driver of disease, and we are not talking about that as much. We go to the doctor, and we have inflammation, and they give you an anti-inflammatory. They don’t say “cut out these inflammatory foods, get some sleep, exercise, what are you doing to alleviate that stress that is causing inflammation?” My dream would be and where I feel the disconnect is that somebody needs to stand on a soapbox with a megaphone screaming from the top of their lungs “let’s look at root causes.” How do you build you immunity? I test for a secretory IGA in the gut to see what your immune system looks like in your gut and how big is your army. If we are in an inflamed state, I can tell you that your secretory IGA is probably pretty low. That is the conversation that I feel like I need to be having. That is what I wish mainstream research was divulging and releasing over and over again. My frustration with covid is that we shut down all of the gyms, but you could get donuts and big gulps delivered to your door. We have got this all backwards. What we eat matters. I am not saying that eating carrots are going to prevent covid, but it is a whole-body system that we do have some power here. The power is to work on your gut and make sure you are building your immunity and not just for covid but for anything that attacks us.

[25:08] Dr. Nirat Nibber, ND: Inflammation can be such a huge topic and quite tricky to manage and treat. You mentioned easier an Anti-inflammatory protocol diet, some therapeutic approaches, generally how are you approaching inflammation? Is it a staged approach and do you often include supplements or is there a period where you need to be more aggressive and then you transition to a maintenance? How do you approach inflammation in general?

[25:41] Risa Groux:  Anybody who is autoimmune, if they have one or more autoimmune diseases, I have what I call the fab five for autoimmune. Vitamin D is critical. Vitamin D is huge for immunity. It is huge for everything. Vitamin D. Omegas, omega 3 fatty acids, those are extraordinarily helpful for fighting inflammation. Glutathione are master antioxidants. It is what helps us against any oxidative stress. Resveratrol is also very helpful with any kind of inflammation. It is an anti-inflammatory and it is natural and no it is not from drinking a bottle of wine that we get that resveratrol. We take it in supplement form. The other is turmeric. Turmeric is a huge anti-inflammatory agent. I use turmeric not just in cooking, but I take turmeric every single solitary day in supplement form and all of those that I work with that have autoimmune they are taking those fab five. If you don’t have autoimmune and I see those inflammation markers in your c reactor protein or your homocysteine, if you are elevated in inflammatory markers, I am going to give you a lot of turmeric and I am going to say “go as high as you need to. If you get diarrhea you have gone too far, back it up just a little bit.” You should have high doses of turmeric to help quell that inflammation.

[27:08] Risa Groux: Then of course diet is huge. Take out the inflammatory foods. We know that all bread, gluten and dairy is a huge highly inflammatory food. It has got tuns of chemicals and hormones and antibiotics in there. Sugar there isn’t a bigger inflammatory food than sugar. Sugar is highly inflammatory. Alcohol, lots of people drink lots of alcohol daily, it is a great source for inflammation. Exercise of course helps. Not overly abundant exercise but whatever you feel is right for you. Just moving your body will help with inflammation. Sleep is a huge factor for inflammation. We don’t sleep enough. If you are not sleeping through the night, then something is going and you need to address that. If you are not getting enough sleep that needs to be address. Then lifestyle, we are all very plugged into our electronics. We need to get off the phones and computers and laugh and sit in silence sometimes or do meditation or read a book or just create space that is not so stimulating all of the time. There are so many things coming at us, but we are not built that way. It drives up our cortisol and we are going to get inflammation that way. It is going to mess with your digestion. Stress is a real thing. Those are the components of an anti-inflammatory lifestyle.

[28:46] Dr. Nirat Nibber, ND: What do you find tends to be that line between dietary changes and lifestyle changes are sufficient to when you actually need to be supplementing or more aggressive in your therapy?

[29:04] Risa Groux: People who come to me tend to be inflamed. Let’s say they are coming to me and they are not very inflamed, I would say eat some turmeric or take it once a day or not a lot. Generally, people’s inflammation is a little bit higher. If they don’t need those anti-inflammatories, then I say don’t take them. Vitamin D is the exception to the rule. I always do Vitamin D if there is any kind of lipid situation elevation or there is cardiovascular disease then omega is something that I am absolutely going to use as a tool in addition to food and lifestyle. I do use supplements a lot. I find that they work. They are very expeditious. Can you do it without supplements? Yeah.

[29:55] Dr. Nirat Nibber, ND: I find with the supplementation discussion with patients it is always helpful to frame it that it may be for a period of time or it may be more indefinite, it really depends on, as you have said, the current state of health. It then becomes a discussion of what is quality supplementation and supplementation for the sake of it. What do you tend to look for when you are selecting products of selective supplements?

[30:31] Risa Groux: I am really picky. I am just really, really, picky because I take a lot of supplements myself and I don’t want any chemicals. I don’t want any dyes. I am always amazed that people walk in with their supplements, and I won’t mention any brands or any stores that make them, but there are so many colourings in our supplements and our medications, the purple pink, the blue pill, the pink pill. Why so we need dyes in our medications and our supplements? I don’t understand that. Those go in the trash right away. A lot of things that you find in a lot of mainstream supplements is soybean oil which is crazy to me. That is such an inflammatory oil. Soybean oil, if I see that on the label that is going in the trash right away. Those are two really big things that I don’t particularly like. I look for quality. I am absolutely not having any gluten, any soy, any dairy in any of my supplements. I manufacture a ton of my own supplements because of this reason because it is hard to source clean supplements so I may my own. I look for very clean ingredients, minimal and highly absorbable, that is the other trick that mainstream supplements have, they are looking at price points so they want a higher margin so they will put in, let’s say, magnesium and calcium different grades of those that take several steps to absorb through the body. If you have a multivitamin for instance those have very low levels and there is lots of conversions that need to take place for you to absorb the magnesium and calcium so the likelihood of you absorbing any calcium in that supplement is slim to none. You are paying a ton of money for these minimal nutrients that you are probably not getting anyway or absorbing and I am really, really, picky. I don’t spend a lot of money on clothes, but I do spend a lot of money on my food and my supplements because that is what is going into my body and I want to make sure it is super clean and not causing any further disruption. Nutraceuticals tend to be better, even places like whole foods and health stores they still have stuff that is not that great. They do have a lot of stuff that is good, but you have to read labels. I read labels on everything.

[33:12] Dr. Nirat Nibber, ND: It is interesting that you talk about the dyes. It is so funny to me that it is still an issue because there are so many natural dyes like the chlorophyl or the beat-based dyes that naturally can give you uniform colour but don’t necessarily carry any of that extra cost per weight.

[33:34] Risa Groux: I don’t know, is it banned in Canada that you can’t do that there?

[33:39] Dr. Nirat Nibber, ND: No, it still occurs. We still get dyes and mono dyes but it not necessary from a manufacturing process which I find interesting because we’ve evolved, and technology has advanced so why do we still do it? Probably ease of use and like you said there is a drive to mass produce things very quickly. I love that you speak to quality and assessing labels. Do you tend to give your clients a quick list, I know you mentioned soybean oil, any other tips when they are looking at labels?

[34:29] Risa Groux: Yes. I have a lot of that. How to read a label. I give people handouts every time I work with them whether it is by zoom and I email them or I hand them out in my office and we talk about the inflammatory oils and what are good oils and what has a high smoke point that won’t cause inflammation. I give as much information as I possibly can. I talk a lot about chemicals here. I am a big fan of detoxing. I have my own 14-day detox which I recommend for a lot of people. It helps balance out hormones and helps clean out the pipes basically. People love it because they experience weight loss, but I always say this is not a weight loss program, yes you will lose weight, but this is about cleaning the system and increasing your gut health and decreasing your systemic inflammation and putting bumpers on the lane, so you are eating clean real foods and nothing is coming out of a package. It is all from a farm and not a factory. I think we need to do that for at least 14 days a year. I recommend it a few times a year but at least 14 days a year you will feel fantastic.

[35:39] Risa Groux: I do want people to be educated. Cooking and pots and pans are another amazing source for chemicals and people don’t realise that and I talk about that quite a bit. Beauty supplies is a huge driver. Us women we shave our armpits and then we put this deodorant on which is filled with aluminium and parabens and dyes and perfumes and all kind of chemicals that are endocrine disrupters and they wonder why they have all this excess oestrogen. Cleaning supplies are a huge factor on that. We have tons of chemicals and perfumes in air sanitizers, those are huge. Now of course we have hand sanitizers. That is everywhere so those have tons of perfumes and dyes. Why do we need all of these chemicals? There is always a natural way to do something. I encourage people to google it if you don’t know. Apple cider vinegar is basically the trick for everything. I use apple cider vinegar to clean almost anything. It cleans the pipes in my shower and my drains, and it is almost like a miracle. That and baking soda, you can really take care of the whole house with those two things. Our toothpaste is filled with dyes and colouring and chemicals and fluoride and things that we don’t need that are not helping to clean our teeth. I want people to be conscious of it. I want you to read labels and look and be picky about what is going into the building, right? We have to be concerned about what is going inside.

[37:27] Dr. Nirat Nibber, ND: Are you ever concerned because some of these things are ubiquitous or fairly accessible that it becomes a barrier or entry for a lot of clients is that they are not able to – you kind of mentioned an interesting point which is your investment in supplements is that you are making that choice to invest in certain areas. How do you coach and guide people when they are saying “I can’t invest in this right now. I don’t have the time or energy,” how do you help guide them?

[38:10] Risa Groux: I get that it can be expensive, and quality is expensive unfortunately. Not everybody needs 55 supplements. I try not to give people 55 supplements, I am exaggerating, I give people what is necessary. Some people say I can’t take them or they prefer liquids, I work around that, but some people will be on a fair amount of supplements, maybe 20 supplements, but it is a short period of time, it is what we are using to address something. If they are in really bad shape and we have a lot to work on, I will say to them “do you want to work on things one at a time?”

[38:48] Dr. Nirat Nibber, ND: Right. Now with the reintroduction or the transition phases at those points what are you recommending? How do you ease people back into a different way of eating if they have been on anti-inflammatory protocol for quite a while?

[39:04] Risa Groux:  That transition we usually do one at a time. Eventually the goal is to eat all of these foods. You will start to know because you start to read your body and become very conscious about what you eat and how you feel and how does your body respond? Do I get stuffy? Do I get puffy? Do I get gas? Do I get diarrhoea or bloated? Those are really great signs. I always say to people “your body communicates with you we are just are not trained on how to read it” but when you work with me you start to realise how your body communicates so you know your body will tell you how long it will need and if it is ready or not ready and then you go according to that. Tests help a lot but at the end of the day it is going to be your body that tells you.

[39:54] Dr. Nirat Nibber, ND: That is such an excellent note to end on because it culminates everything you have been saying. Our relationship with food, our relationship with our body, these are interconnected, and we just need to listen. Thank you for doing the work you do and also for sharing with us today. Individuals can also find you at risagrouxnutrition.com. Anywhere else they can find you?

[40:24] Risa Groux:  Yes, I am on Instagram, and I do have a podcast where I don’t do a lot, but it is called The Diet Dilemma. My book FoodFrame is coming out January 7^th. I am very excited. I have had tremendous support from lots of people in the health community, Dr. Gundry, Dr. Josh Axe, Maria Shriver, Susan Summers. It has been really great. I am so grateful for it. I do a lot of thyroid work so I have a thyroid class that will be going live in March as well. We’ve got lots of good stuff. It is the hub for really getting your health in order and addressing your root causes.

[41:06] Dr. Nirat Nibber, ND: Well that is amazing. Thank you so much. Congratulations on the book coming out.

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Thank you for listening to Supplementing Health. For more information about our guests, past shows, and future topics, please visit AOR.ca/podcasts or AOR.us/podcasts. Do you have a topic you want us to cover? We invite you to engage with us on social media to request a future topic or email us at marketing@aor.ca. We hope you tune in again next week to learn more about supplementing your health.

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