Episode Transcript
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Hi, this is Rachel and recover. We're back with a special guest.
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Um. She's gonna tell us a
little bit about herself. She's a nutritionist.
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In her name's Christie. Um tell
tells some things about you yourself.
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Thanks Rachel, and very nice to
be here with you today. Um.
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Like I said, I'm Christie and
I am a registered dietitian nutritionists and I
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practice out of out of Phoenix,
Arizona, um in the hot desert,
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and I practice. I've been practicing
as a dietitian now for about you know,
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twelve years, uh and mostly within
the field of public health and public
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health nutrition as well as work site
wellness I've focused on. But I'm currently
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practicing out of the local health department
here in Phoenix, Arizona, as well
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as uh um working on my own
private practice. UM. Okay, okay,
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um, look at you into nutrition? Yeah, that's a really good
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question, Rachel. So what got
me into nutrition is more of a personal
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journey, and um, it goes
back to it goes way back to childhood,
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to be honest. But where it
started like kind of getting into my
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head and like you know, focusing
on health and nutrition was in my high
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school years because before I started,
you know, that this focus, or
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before I got into it, I
was eating in a way that was not
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nourishing to my body or brain.
Um. For example, Uh, I
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you know, mountain dew was my
breakfast and a rice crispy bar was my
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breakfast, and I you know,
didn't associate the to like, well,
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then why am I not feeling good
you know later on in the day,
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or why do I not have a
lot of energy or why you know,
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through my moods maybe go up and
you know down, or do I feel
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you know, angry as they say, which I didn't have a word for
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it back then. But nonetheless I
got into just reading, you know,
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reading, reading, reading, and
it was just at that same time where
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you know, it was getting really
into it that I also was going to
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college and I didn't know necessarily what
I wanted to major in. So I'm
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like, you know, this has
become a passion for mine. Let me
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take this route and then you know
the rest is history. Um, And
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it finally led to me to you
know, lead me to where I am
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today. Okay, Um, what
do you do as a registered dietitian with
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nutrition As diet dietitian nutritionist. Sure, it is a tongue twister, and
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I'm sorry that it's kind of kind
of um, I guess tongue twisting if
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you will. But what do I
do? So? I do a lot
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of things, but kind of like
just sum it up. My primary focus
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is on working with other dietitians and
other nutrition nous to support the development and
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implementation of trauma and form care within
you know, nutrition practices, within nutrition
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programs and incorporating them into like larger
healthcare organizations like hospitals for example. Have
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you've heard of snap h Supplemental Needs
and Assistance programs? Yeah? So,
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or you know, for our audience
formerly known as food Stamp, the food
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Stamps program. UM. But I
work with snaphead agencies and WIG agencies,
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school wellness programs and even like nutrition
pantry programs UM again to help, you
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know, bring awareness to the role
of trauma adversity and how that can impact
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health and health outcomes. But again
also you know now that we you know,
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the people might have that awareness,
it's like what do we do you
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with it? So I helped facilitate
the process and kind of help deliver the
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how and how we can start incorporating
some of these trauma informed best practices into
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again, um, just the field
of nutrition. UM. Yeah, and
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I'm gonna say sorry. Also along
that line to UM, I also do,
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like I mentioned earlier, work with
worksite wellness programs and with that work
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site wellness UM just learning or helping
people address like employee like burnout or fatigue
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and just uh, you know,
fostering resilient organization that can help support people,
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you know through tough times, UM, but also through you know,
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challenging events that you know, we've
been facing as a society as a whole.
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H. That's true. It's been
a rough time to try to buy
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food right now. Absolutely. Gas
prices have also gone up exponentially. Stuff
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that doesn't know. But yeah,
no, you make a really good point.
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I was actually just watching the news
tonight and or last night, and
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they were just highlighting, um,
food banks in our area and just how
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much the demand has increased to where
food banks are now having to purchase their
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own food because they're running out of
food. So it is, it's it
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is definitely challenging times for most of
us, and um, you know,
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food is definitely part of that UM
problem. So well, gas prices are
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starting to come down, so hopefully
it won't be this big of an issue
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for this long. I couldn't agree
more. Okay, UM, what got
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you working with people with trauma?
How did you? Yeah? So that's
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another good question. So what got
me into it? Um? It was
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just I mean by chance, if
if I can say that, it's UM.
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I started working at the health department
again like twelve years ago, and
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that's when the idea you heard of
aces adverse childhood experiences and like aces,
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but also positive childhood experiences. So
I started learning about that research and the
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role of trauma not only in nutrition
but just health in general. Again,
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I'm surrounded by so many different professions
in the health department, So just hearing
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these different perspectives and how these aces, how these positive also experiences can influence
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health later on was really impactful to
what got me into just diving deeper into
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the research as well as making it
a you know, a life passion to
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be able to help people, um, you know with similar experience you know,
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you know, having my own you
know, past experiences with diversity and
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trauma, so helping others who you
know get through what I've experienced, and
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um, also working how do I
say, a lot of my work too
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at the health department, you know, is in communities that are less represented,
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is less represented, may have a
lack of access to nutritious foods or
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health health care needs, might be
you know, working communities with higher levels
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of violence. So that kind of
you know went, uh, kind of
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supported what I was reading in the
research and reading about aces, but just
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witnessing at firsthand and just seeing you
know, nutrition and it wasn't always a
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priory priority. Health isn't always a
priority when you have other situations and stressors
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in your life. But also just
learning how these these stressors in the community
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actually can invoke or uh you know, lead to they can be traumatic experiences
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for many people. So, um, it was it was you know what
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got me into it was, um, you know, just being surrounded by
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these ideas in the health department and
then also working in the community and witnessing
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some of this stuff firsthand. Okay, UM, what are some adverse and
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trauma? Oh, in some ways
adversity and trauma impact food and eating behaviors.
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Can you tell us a little bit
about that. Yeah, So,
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adversity and trauma it can lead to
um, you know, a variety of
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different behaviors, health behaviors, including
those that are dietary related. UM adversity
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you know it can and trauma can
lead to disordered eating patterns for example,
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such as you know yo yo dieting, or preoccupation with food or binge eating
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or even you know, restricting food. Food is in those cases can be
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used as a coping mechanism. UM
can be used as as a way to
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just soothe self, soothe if you
will, and to cope you know with
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you know, with struggles and that
trauma. UM. Further, you know,
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experience like we were just talking about
with you know, hunger, food
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insecurity. Those experiences can lead to
you know, feast or famine mindset later
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in life. So the idea that
like, when food is available, eating
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as much as possible because it's kind
of been ingrained in your body and your
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brain that you know might not know, you know, not knowing where your
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next meal might come from. That
might have been a childhood experience that then
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is ingrained and within you two that
leads to those UM behaviors. UM Also
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just trauma can really it inhibits our
you know, our bodies and our brains,
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but it can take our thinking brain
offline, right, so we can
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can into this survival mode to where
we're not evil to really access the part
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of the brain to fully engage in
these higher level um cognitive activities that are
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required, you know, with so
many different uhm um, you know,
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behait food behaviors like meal planning,
budgeting, food preparation, you know,
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planning, etcetera, etcetera. Like
when we are under a trauma, when
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we're experiencing that adversity, sometimes we
can't access that part of our brain that
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is needed to really carry out these
healthy behaviors. UM. And I'm thinking
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also too, you know when it
comes to trauma, you know, common
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symptom is dissociation. So when we're
you know, not really tuning into our
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bodies and for years not tuning into
our bodies, we may not really fully
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recognize hunger cues or you know,
fullness cues or even like thirst cues.
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So you know, when we're not
able to recognize when we're hungry are full,
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that can like lead to overeating or
under eating for example. Um.
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And then of course you know,
trauma and you know, aces adversity has
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been highly associated you know, with
many diet related outcomes later in life,
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such as like heart disease, diabetes, uh, you know, kidney disease
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for example, which you know traditionally
the focus is then just to treat,
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you know, providing you know,
the right nutrition, right food to help
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treat that. Um. But that
really ignores some of the you know,
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foundational like root causes of some of
that those food behaviors to where it really
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takes a trauma informed approach to really
dig deeper into um, you know,
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the wise you know, why we
eat the way we do or the foods,
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why we eat the foods that we
do. Okay, Um, what
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is considered a balanced approach to nutrition? Yeah, so I could ask that
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a lot, and really it comes
down to just eating a variety of you
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know, nutrition foods. You know, there's the food you know, fruits,
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vegetables, whole grains, you know, protein foods, healthy fats for
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example. It's it's enjoying a variety
of nutritious foods, but also you know,
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eating the foods that you really enjoy. So I don't ever recommend cutting
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out any type of food, like, especially if those foods are the ones
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that you truly enjoy. Like for
me, you know, I like sweets,
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so rather than restrict or you know, when you know cut them out,
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you know, include those you know
in moderation UM. But just I
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advise people to not restrict UM,
to not necessarily cut out the foods that
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they enjoy UM, and just you
know, find patterns that can be sustained.
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Right, so you know what what
a diet that you can then do
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for the rest of your life versus
just a temporary solution that's not sustainable UM.
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And then a big approach with people
too, is just learning to recognize
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UM and respond to hungers and fullness
cues AH and also helping people, you
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know, to balance blood sugar.
So it's it's key to balance blood sugar
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levels, you know, eating a
carbohydrate rich food with a protein or fat
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rich food because this help can you
know, steady blood sugar, which you
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know, when our blood sugar drops
or it's not steady, it's too high.
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This can lead to changes in the
mood, changes an energy level,
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etcetera. So you know, to
sum it up, you know, eat
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a variety of foods, don't cut
out any foods that you enjoy UM,
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you know, learning to recognize hunger
and sutidy, and then just focusing on
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balancing blood sugar levels. Okay um, would be considered a healthy diet?
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I think we pretty much went over
this. So what would be considered a
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healthy diet? So a healthy dialect
would be you know, having balance,
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so balancing the right foods. So
again, like I said, balancing blood
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sugar, eating the right foods to
keep your blood sugar steady, but also
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um, incorporating the foods that you
truly enjoy um, and not restricting any
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type of food. Um. But
yeah, eating you know, just the
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variety of carbo hyda variety of protein, variety of fats. Okay um.
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What is the best advice you would
give to a trauma victims out there?
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The best advice I would recommend would
be it would be, you know,
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to be patient with ourselves, to
be kind with ourselves through this journey of
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self care and journey of behavior change. I always say, you know,
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it took years for us to develop
you know these some unwanted or you know,
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potentially unhealthy coping strategies. We can't
expect ourselves to just change overnight.
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You know, habits aren't aren't changed
overnight. So just be patient with yourself
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and be patient, um and kind
with yourself, you know, through the
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entire journey. Okay, um,
what should people who are listening to if
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they want more and more more one
on one help with nutrition? Absolutely,
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So I just want to first say
I'm not I don't currently do one on
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one like type accountsling. However,
you know, people can reach out to
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me and I can get them in
touch with people that do UM. But
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the type of support I provide is
you know, more kind of organizational programmed
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um uh systems level. But I
can be reached at my website, which
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is habits to heel dot com.
So h A B I T s the
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number two and then h E A
L dot com. Okay, well,
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UM, I guess anything else you
would like to add? Uh? I
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don't UM, I can't think of
anything right now, but I do definitely
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appreciate you reaching out to me and
this opportunity to share a little bit more
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about trauma and nutrition and trauma inform
nutrition care. Okay, alright, guys,
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thanks for listening. Tune in next
Thursday at ten am. I always
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follow this on your favorite social media
platform or on your favorite podcast, And
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if you have any questions I want
to reach out, always go to Rachel
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and recovery dot com, and we've
got some new resource pages up so check
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those out. No.
