Listen Now

Sanity during the winter – what do you do for movement? Liz and Michelle chat about skiing and gyms… Michelle talks a little about the gratitude challenge she took on at the beginning of December, and how her mental outlook and energy have increased significantly since doing the challenge. Liz is hosting a free Whole 30 support group, jump on her Facebook group, it’s starting Jan. 1. If you need a reset after the holidays this might be for you. Michelle will have a RESTART Sugar Detox 5-week class starting sometime in January, it will have only 8 slots available. https://www.facebook.com/groups/LizMorganNutrition/ http://www.primalnaturenutrition.com/restart/ What are we really celebrating by the new year? What we are really celebrating in making it through the darkest days and the light returning. Liz and Michelle discuss their New Year Resolutions. Find something that is tangible and small, have fun with it. Ask yourself what is the purpose of your resolution is, is it for lasting change or is it just to change for a month? Find a support group for whatever your resolution, to help keep you on track. Our soap box moment – Banning “Losing Weight” from New Year’s Resolutions! Maybe it should be improving your health and nourishing your body, so that the weight comes off naturally. Focus on adding in healthy items instead of eliminating the “bad” things. One tip for healthy eating success, batch cooking. The Girl’s final soapbox moment – Make your new year’s resolution small and set yourself up for success.. We Really Want to Hear from You!!! Follow us on Instagram @nutritionsoapbox and/or join our Facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/NutritionSoapbox/), so we can find out what questions you have and how we can help you! Help us get to 500 listens per episode – share your favorite episodes with friends! You can also find all of the episodes and the summaries at www.nutritionsoapbox.com. You can find Michelle at www.primalnaturenutrition.com and Liz at www.lizmorgannutrition.com or on Instagram and Facebook. We’ll see you on the soapbox!

Liz and Michelle start out talking about estrogen dominance and how caffeine might be blocking the normal estrogen detox system. They chat a bit about the thanksgiving turkey, gluten free Friendsgiving, and eating out of the freezer. Last minute Holiday shopping? Food is a great option, gift certificates, and handmade soaps. Liz’s pet peeve with the holidays – paper plates and plastic cups! Holidays are really a time to be present with your loved ones, a time to up your game, and be intentional about items you are consuming and giving. Check Liz’s website for affiliate links for last minute gift ideas - https://www.lizmorgannutrition.com/shop. Liz and Michelle share some of their own results of the functional diagnostic testing that they use in their practices. Michelle talks about her gut healing protocol due to autoimmune diagnosis at the beginning of the year. They both use a stool test to get a better idea of what is going on with the microbiome in the gut, so that they can help rebalance it. One part of the gut healing protocol is to remove the stressors, and they use the MRT food sensitivity test to help remove the inflammatory foods. Michelle will be doing some further testing to help figure out where there might be dysfunction that corresponds to her ongoing symptoms. Liz had both a parasite and yeast last year in her first test, which did correspond with the symptoms she was having. Her 2nd test showed all of those were now gone but another parasite showed up. She is gearing up now to start a new protocol to rebalance the microbiome. She also did an MRT food sensitivity test and will be removing the inflammatory foods while implementing the protocol. Stay tuned… The Girls Final Soapbox Moment – Test don’t Guess! We Really Want to Hear from You!!! Follow us on Instagram @nutritionsoapbox and/or join our facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/NutritionSoapbox/), so we can find out what questions you have and how we can help you! You can also find all of the episodes and the summaries at www.nutritionsoapbox.com. You can find Michelle at www.primalnaturenutrition.com and Liz at www.lizmorgannutrition.com or on Instagram and Facebook. We’ll see you on the soapbox!

Liz and Michelle discuss that skin is one of the ways toxins exit the body, and therefore, it is also a pathway for toxin entry. We interview Gwen Shaughnessy (Michelle’s sister) about her line of skin care – Kamala Organics. Gwen discusses her digestive issues and her journey to healing herself, where she was forced to look at what she was putting in and on her body. Her life became about nourishment and healing. After she was vegetarian for years, it made a huge amount of difference when she started incorporating properly sourced animal sources in her diet. She became fascinated with homesteading, but living in an apartment her, her homesteading consisted of making almond milk herself. When it came to overhauling her personal care products it became daunting, but it also became a necessity. She started experimenting and the first thing she made was a body oil. Then she started giving it away as gifts and one thing led to another. She selects the ingredients based on a few questions she asks – What benefits does it bring to the table and How is it going to nourish my skin? What oils and essential fatty acids that could help nourish and heal that condition that someone is concerned with? Gwen really likes Jojoba oil right now, it absorbs great, feels really nice, and has some great essential fatty acids in it. It’s counterintuitive but the best thing to put on your face is oil! The girls talk about some of the more toxic ingredients that are put in skin care. Petroleum based, mineral oil, products, in particular, have been found to have carcinogenic materials in them, dioxin being one of them. They also contain endocrine or hormone disrupters and can cause a bunch of different systemic issues internally. Synthetic colors are petroleum based as well. And many of the petroleum based ingredients have been linked to ADHD in children. Preservatives are required by law for any formulations that have water in them. The preservatives being used can cause issues, for instance parabens can mimic estrogen so when it’s absorbed into the system it can cause hormonal imbalances. Parabens, in particular, have been found in biopsies of cancerous breast tissue in women. In men, using these products, they have found lower sperm counts and lower testosterone. Phthalates are known endocrine disrupters, have been linked to increased risk of breast cancer, have been correlated to early development in girls, and reproductive birth defects in m

Liz and Michelle open up the podcast by discussing the results of Liz’s food sensitivity testing. Caitlin Crowell discusses her background studying Global Health and Nutrition during college, including her time at an international research hospital in Bangladesh. While she was there, she got to see how nutrition functions in the acute phases of certain health states. Caitlin discusses the importance of zinc supplementation in developing countries, for both intestinal mucosal health and digesting food. She went to a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner for her own issues of digestion and anxiety, which ultimately led her to see how powerful nutrition can be. After college, she went to the Nutritional Therapy Association for her certification, and now has her own online business that includes Instagram influencer marketing and blogging. Unfortunately, conventional medicine doesn’t really help the walking sick, but that’s where we can help as NTPs. She is attracted to finding real food alternatives to supplementation and looking how superfoods can help the body rebalance. Caitlin talks about how she sees Instagram and uses it to connect to folks interested in nutrition. She specifically talks about what inspired her to write the blog post “The Problem with Nutrition and Instagram.” Her final note on this issue - be intentional. Caitlin’s Final Soapbox Moment – Your body is smarter than you are. We can’t force it into a place for too long or it will fight back. Words of Wisdom!!! http://www.whatcaitate.com/the-problem-with-nutrition-instagram/ @whatcaitate on Instagram

Liz and Michelle both discuss their up and down week, including Michelle’s trip to Portland and Liz’s week of food frustration… They tackle answering the question “what is the first thing you can do to start eating healthier?” The first step is to set the intention of wanting to eat healthier, then start with removing the processed food and eating real food. What is processed food? We process all of our food, the problem is the chemical processing and additives in the industrialized food. Liz talks about ancestral diets from her college research on food systems and her research for her book “Foraging the Rocky Mountains.” We are actually less healthy now than we have been in the past. Many of the current health concerns can be traced back to packaged processed foods that are devoid of nutrients and contain rancid fats. Ancestral diets really looked different across the world, however, they were all consistent in using their ecosystem in nourishing ways. The tribes interestingly ate grass seed, grass was the precursor to the wheat. The difference between then and now is how they properly prepared the seed through various means: pounding, soaking or fermenting it. They weren’t eating them in the chemically treated denatured way that we now process them. Phytic acid is a covering that protects the seed that humans can’t digest, so to get to the nutrients you have to remove the outer shell by properly preparing them. Liz and Michelle discuss some of the hidden ingredients in processed food, like caramel coloring. Ultimately, it’s important to have fun with Real Food! Just start with something.

In this episode, Liz and Michelle discuss Leaky Gut Syndrome and how this is a major underlying cause for many of the chronic disease and health challenges today, which they both have dealt with. They dive into what causes leaky gut, what the symptoms are, and how to reverse it. Some of the signs that you might have leaky gut include: food sensitivities, other allergies (like seasonal ones), IBS, Crohn’s, Colitis, autoimmune, thyroid, inflammatory skin conditions, mood issues, autism and autism spectrum disorders, hormone imbalances, chronic fatigue, acne, rosacea, eczema, you can’t lose weight despite an excellent diet, your joints ache and swell, brain fog, or you have a diagnosed gut infection. Liz was particularly interested in recording this episode because she was called a Leaky Gut Conspiracy theorist last year! Liz and Michelle discuss how the intestinal lining is like a brick wall, and when the mortar is broken, bacteria, yeast or undigested food particles from the inside of the gut can “leak” out into the bloodstream. The immune system then attacks it as if it was a foreign invader, putting in on high alert constantly. Sugar can feed the bad bacteria in the gut which can open the tight junctions. Gluten is a chemical trigger that breaks the cell wall apart, it produces the zonulin protein that specifically opens the tight junctions. Fermented foods aren’t being used to preserve food anymore, so we are not getting the good inoculation that we used to. Healing a leaky gut includes removing the stressors, repairing, replacing, and reinoculating the gut. Michelle’s last thought – digestive dysfunction can look like symptoms that are not typically associated with digestion.

Liz and Michelle both discuss what they ate for breakfast. Liz discusses her experimentation with properly preparing oatmeal. Michelle discussed her fat bombed Rasa Koffee that she is into right now, and eating her dinner for breakfast. Breakfast doesn’t have to look like a typical American breakfast. Liz and Michelle discuss the symptoms of imbalanced digestion such as: constipation, diarrhea, bloating, stomach pain, acid reflux, gas, cramping, or you are always hungry. They want people to know that we can help by analyzing these symptoms and fixing them. You don’t have to suffer and be in pain. Liz and Michelle share a couple of digestion stories and the role of inflammation. They discuss the details of how digestion works, including the North to South process, and how digestion can go wrong. Sphincter is the word of this podcast! Liz and Michelle end by discussing some strategies for healing the gut. On a final note, Liz makes sure to emphasize the need for good quality water, making sure to filter water to reduce the chlorine.

Liz and Michelle discuss why they are recording a podcast and how they chose the name, Nutrition Soapbox. Their main goal is to discuss interesting issues in the realm of nutritional therapy and to expand the community of people that engage in this conversation, so people don’t feel so alone. Both Liz and Michelle are passionate about sharing their nutritional therapy knowledge to make the world a healthier happier place. They discuss how they met during the Nutritional Therapy Association’s nine-month program and their own personal health journey that led them to the NTA. They chat about what each of them ate for breakfast, including Liz’s breakfast salad. Liz shares her recipe for morning bulletproof chai. They finish the podcast with more discussion about the vision and how they may be getting a little political, including getting on the soapbox during each episode. Liz asks the question “why is our food system such a disaster?” Liz and Michelle want to present nutrition information in the context of the whole food system, so that when you are thinking about making food choices, you can vote with your fork.

Join us on the soapbox twice a month to talk about what matters most in nutrition today. Cutting edge interviews on the frontier of nutrition and nutrition policy with lively discussion about how to reclaim your own health. Hosted by holistic nutritionists, Liz Morgan & Michelle Shaughnessy. A 5-minute teaser episode. Full length episodes coming November 1, 2017!