“We need to be empowered in taking charge of our own health”
Trudy Scott
Trudy Scott is a Food Mood Expert and Nutritionist. Her mission is to educate women about a healthy and balanced lifestyle, dietary choices, and nutrient supplements so that they can feel on-top-of-the-world. She authored the book, The Anti-Anxiety Food Solutions, which helps you address nutritional deficiencies that may be the root of your anxiety and enjoy the foods that foster increased emotional balance.
We often think that eating vegetables are the healthiest way to go. But, on this episode, Trudy explains why becoming a vegetarian is not the wisest choice. She reveals the different kinds of foods that help our mental health and decrease our anxieties.
Listen to episode 88 on iTunes here or subscribe on your favorite podcast app.
88: Show Notes
Dr. Veronica Anderson’s Links:
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Book:
The Anti-Anxiety Food Solutions: How the Foods You Eat Can Help You Calm Your Anxious Mind, Improve Your Mood, & End Cravings – by Trudy Scott, CN
Time stamps:
2:59 – How she got into Food & Emotion
7:34 – Vegetables, Soy, and Animal Protein
10:58 – Different protein sources in relation to emotions
16:14 – Healthiest food options
21:22 – Amino Acids and its benefits
24:45 – Sugar and Carbs addiction
28:17 – Balancing food and supplements
30:19 – Problem foods
37:49 – What you need to know about tea
42:54 – The good and bad salt
45:30 – The book: Anti-Anxiety Food Solutions
Full Transcript:
Female VO: Welcome to the Wellness Revolution Podcast, the radio show all about wellness in your mind, body, spirit, personal growth, sex, and relationships. Stay tuned for weekly interviews featuring guests that have achieved physical, mental, and spiritual health in their lives.
If you’d like to have access to our entire back catalog visit drveronica.com for instant access. Here’s your host, Dr. Veronica.
Dr. Veronica: Welcome to Dr. Veronica Wellness Revolution. Today we’re going to talk about food and how it can make you feel better emotionally. This is such an important topic to me because my family is all crazy. They might mind me saying that but they’ll admit that they’re crazy. It starts with my father who has depression and then it goes to, I’ve had depression, my son’s one is bipolar one is kind of depressed and guess what, I figured out, actually I didn’t figure out I have one of my colleagues figure out that what was causing problems in my sons and I’m talking clinical problems needed to go almost into the inpatient ward type problems. Figured out that it was food that was causing the problems and how they were reacting emotionally.
Well that’s really powerful to figure out that I can change where I’m eating and I can feel better. On one side fabulous on the other side when you’re addicted to the food it’s making you act crazy it- So today I have a lady on with me you’re going to enjoy this because we’re going to talk about all these ups and downs. You need to know these associations because if you want to figure out how to get well, especially well without medications. This is the lady you want to talk to and the book you want to read, The Antianxiety Food Solution.
Trudy Scott, The Antianxiety Food Solution author, this is a great book this is one that I actually sat down and read. I don’t read all the books I read the notes I read the synopsis but I was actually sitting and reading all this saying yeah, yeah, yeah because I was like I got to know this better because it runs throughout my family. So obviously we can we can fall off the edge and be crazy.
So if I want to figure out how not to make me crazy then I need to know what this is all about. So you guys might be saying why is she calling this crazy, because look just call it what it is and laugh about it and that’s how you can tell that I’m well because I can laugh about what’s going on. But when you’re feeling anxious depressed any of these other emotions that you feel are out of control, you don’t want people calling you crazy but you wants to figure out how to get it fixed.
Did you know that even diseases or mental issues as varied as schizophrenia which people think you can’t do anything about can be modified very remarkably with food, yes it can. So I’m going to welcome on Trudy, we’re going to talk about The Antianxiety Food Solution. But first Trudy, tell us what originally had you get into talking about food and the emotions.
Trudy: Hi Dr. Veronica. Thanks for having me here, I’m really excited to be talking about this and I’m just very glad to hear you’re back story and not the fact that you’re family members had issues but the fact that you found this very powerful connection between food and how we feel. Because it’s so important that people make that connection because so often we’ll go to the doctor, we’ll go to the psychologist and we’ll be you know told medication or therapy. And to know that there is this very powerful connection between what we eat and how we feel is just so fundamental and I found out about it myself.
I had anxiety and panic attacks, you know I’m a rock climber, I’m an adventurous person, I’ve- climbing I’ve climbed up Kilimanjaro we did climb Kilimanjaro- for our honey moon. So I’m not anxious timid person but out of the blue, it seemed doctor was out of the blues in my late 30s I just started to get increasingly anxious. And I had this waking with this feeling of doom. You know something impending doom, something is going to happen and it was not rational.
You know when you’re feeling like this you can rationalize, it’s just there it just wrecks you. And a long story short I worked with the nurse practitioner and I went up on naturopath and stated to make these connections between what I was eating and how I was feeling and it was I had a perfect storm. You know you’ve talked about food but there’s many other elements to it. It’s low zinc, it’s low GABA levels, it’s gluten sensitivity, leaky guts, heavy metal, adrenal issues, oman issues.
All of these biochemical affects us and I know you talk about with your community and teach about. But we got to figure out what the puzzle piece is putting together and then address those. So for me it was changing my diet that was a big factor. I was actually eating a vegetarian diet at the time which was not good for me. I was eating a lot of processed soya and so going back to animal protein was very important. But long story short, increasing the nutritional deficiencies, changing my diet. Getting of gluten was a big factor for me personally and I see that as a big factor for many of my clients.
That completely eliminated the anxiety and the panic attacks, I no longer have them. I was so amazed by what I found, I was actually working at Hopi America at the time. I was so amazed by what I found that I went back to school to become a nutritionist and that’s my mission to help other women who out of the blue in their late 30s as they’re going into menopause try to see that these moods shifts and show them that they don’t have to use medication. That they don’t have to resort to drugs to feel good, they just have to address the underlying biochemistry. The food and nutrients and that’s amazing.
Dr. Veronica: Yes and I’m like sitting here anxious because I’m like when I’m talking to somebody I listen to everything you say and I’m like the dogs are barking, I’m like they’re like kids. Somehow they know that I’m talking to somebody and it’s like shut up and that’s making me anxious right now. But we go [indiscernible 00:06:28], people who’ve seen my show, sometime you might see my dog come across the screen [indiscernible 00:06:33] Mr. Apollo.
So forgive us for the noise everybody, you know we love the doggies. But you’ve said something that I’m going to go back to because this is how people think it’s the right way to eat. You said I was a vegetarian and that wasn’t the right way to eat for me, I had to go back to eating meat. Talk about that a moment because there’s this idea out there that the healthiest way you can be is a vegetarian. I also know for me that from a genetic standpoint that’s not the best diet, vegetarian diet I would crap out on too because genetically I need more certain factors that you only can in animal protein.
That’s the way it is and so therefore vegetarian when you know it doesn’t mean that I eat only meat all meat, the quality is quite important of the type of meat that you are eating. Because if you’re eating a wrong quality but you also mentioned about soya, so we’re going to talk about vegetarians and then we’re going to talk about soya too because soya is one of those foods that everybody thinks is amazingly healthy and those of us who are in the wellness field know that that’s usually not necessarily the case. So first the vegetarian, second the soya. Go ahead.
Trudy: So firstly I want to have in the people someone who is a vegetarian for more reasons because I was a vegetarian from all reasons. I had an audio interview where they talked about animal, you know [indiscernible 00:08:17] farming and I just stopped eating animal protein that day because I was just so terrified. So this was early days before I was a nutritionist and I- The problem was I was in America and there was a lot of soya available, processed soya. So it was soya yoghurt, soya cheese, soya butter, soya textured vegetables protein, I was eating a lot of that.
So I’m going to answer both questions yes, so I was getting a lot of soya I didn’t know about the whole GMO connection to soya. So I was probably getting a lot of genetically modified soya. Soya is a common elegance you know that probably was a factor as well I think I’ve damaged my guts a lot. But going back to the red meat aspect is we need- I have found this you know in many of my clients with anxiety that you need animal protein. We need and I’m so glad you talked about quantities, so it does need to be grass-fed red meat, it does need to be wild fish really, really important.
Some of the things the beautiful nutrients that we get from grass-fed red meat is a wonderful source of omega three. If you are not a big fish eater, you can get really good, omega three is from your grass-fed red meat. Zinc, Iron both co-factors that are needed to make [indiscernible 00:09:36] neurotransmitter’s GABA and Serotonin. It also helps to flexure the stability, you can feel cranky you can feel irritable, you can have a full blank panic attack if you have blood sugar swing.
So having some protein and some healthy fats of the meal can help stabilize your blood sugar and I found a lot of vegetarians will be eating high carbohydrates, a lot more legumes and cobs and that can definitely affects blood sugar. So that is a factor, so I always just say to my clients you still you know on this feeling that this is the moral thing to do. Think about how you are feeling, what how you can show up in the world if you’re not feeling your absolute best.
You know how are you feeling, are you really feeling good and that’s not hard I just think so many people need to go through this rite of passage of being a vegetarian. You know I host the anxiety summit and just about every single person that I’ve interviewed when we talk about, bring this topic up they say I was once a vegetarian. So I think a lot of us go through it and I just want to caution people who are in the midst of it right now who are thinking about it, that it’s not the best thing. We usually go through it and then we figure out that it’s not really the best way to be eating.
Dr. Veronica: So what about people who are vegetarians for health reasons. There are some people who say morally they want to be a vegetarian but I think you know now there’s everybody saying you need to eat a plant based diet and that sort of says you need to be a vegetarian. Whenever I ask people how they change their health and what are they doing to be healthy, people [indiscernible 00:11:19] tell me about how they are hardly eating any red meat. And I don’t comment at that point because we start learning how to you know, make changes it’s not just that one thing that’s going to make people unhealthy.
But talk little bit about you came to realize you should as a nutritionist that it was better to have meat and red meat specifically because people say, well I cut down my red meat I eat a lot of chicken, I eat chicken and fish. But all chickens aren’t healthy and there’s red meat that’s more healthy than chicken or fish you know if it’s catfish and tilapia that’s not the kind of fish that we’re talking about. We’re not even talking about all types of salmon even. So give us a little bit of a rundown on the different protein sources and their nutritional value generally and then if you can relate it to emotionally.
Trudy: So I’m glad you talked about this because a lot of people will say I’m not eating much red meat because they think it’s a healthy thing. So and a lot of people are still being told by their doctors don’t eat red meat, so if they say there is any risk of heart disease or they have got high cholesterol which we know is not a you know an issue the same issue that we have from a doctor. So unfortunately that still being, it’s still being told you know we are still being told us from mainstream medicine and then the media and everything.
But there are definitely quality issues of chicken as well. There is quality issues with fish I’m glad you brought those up. But going back to the whole red meat and why we want to be adding it back in. There’s actually research supporting this, one of my favorite research is doctor Police Jacka and she’s an Australian researcher. I’m now in Australian and I got to actually meet her at the end of last year and she’s an amazing researcher, she’s the head of an organization for the International Society for Nutritional Psychiatrist Research, ISNPR and she’s done many papers.
One her paper, I think it was a first paper that she did for her dissertation was looking at the risk of anxiety and depression and Australian woman eating a traditional diet, a real whole rich diet versus a junk food diet and the real food diet included guess what, grass-fed red meat. Because in Australia there is much less farmed meat, it’s more grass-fed red meat and they found a lower incidence of anxiety and depression when these women were eating a real fruits died including the grass-fed red meat.
And when I interviewed her on the anxieties summit she actually said that when she went in to her [indiscernible 00:14:21] she was expecting to find the opposite, she was expecting to find that red meat was going to be a problem and she was surprised, pleasantly surprised to found that the biggest correlate to good mental health was grass-fed red meat. So here we’ve got it in the research there is a member of other papers. There was actually a paper that looked at menopause and women and they were looking at high blood pressure and they had these women on a DASH diet which is the dietary approaches to lower hypertension.
Her blood pressure, they found that the real foods including grass-fed red meat with a lot plants and you mentioned plant base. So we definitely want to be including a lot of organic produce, a lot of vegetables and it should be organic. But with this DASH diet with a lot of produce and the grass-fed red meat lower blood pressure and improve mood in these menopause women. So we’ve got the research supporting it, I see it all the time in my practice and just you know I say go for it but very importantly quality is super, super important when it comes to the grass-fed red meat.
Dr. Veronica: How about fish?
Trudy: So I am a proponent of fish, I would not go for farmed fish and you really have to know your labeling in your countries and I’m going to just mention Australia because I’m in Australia at the moment. Yeah, they don’t really label it as wild or farmed, they’re calling it sustainable, they are not using the word farm, they are calling it sustainable because they know that the consumer is thinking well farmed isn’t good. So if you go to a different country, think about how they labeling it and don’t just assume that it is wild and I would you know obviously look for clean source.
Wild is important and be aware that you want a smaller fish, sardines, I love sardines they’re smaller fish they less likely to concentrate toxins, salmon as well. I would not go for something they like you know some of the biggest swordfish and some of the bigger tuna because of the high risk of concentrating mercury and other toxins. So that’s my stance on fish. Any comments on what you think about fish.
Dr. Veronica: Oh well just what you said the wild, you’re in Australia here in America they have it label but wild and also yes less tuna because it tends to have a higher concentration of mercury. But you know the fatty fish we know are good for the brain overall. So every and every cell in the body is surrounded by lipids and fats and so one of the things is that people go on low fat diets and they actually need more fat and more fat is going to- but more fat of the right kind of fat and so that’s why we’re saying-
Now I’m going to, let’s say I’m going out to dinner tonight, we’re going to a regular one of the meal restaurant. It’s not you know a low in restaurants it’s a middle of the road restaurant. I can’t get organic I can’t get grass-fed beef. What should we pick instead when we’re looking at that menu if we’re thinking about not just our health in general but our mental health?
Trudy: So the first thing I would say call ahead and find a restaurant that is going to feed you know for time you need. That would be my recommendation but if you can’t do that and you stumped, I would go for lamb. Lamb is not you know it’s not [indiscernible 00:18:04] and if you pick lamb you probably going to be safer than buying beef which you don’t know where it’s coming from. That’s going to be- that’s what I do if I’m somewhere that I’m stuck, I will go for lamb because it’s you pretty much assured that it’s not going to be you know pumped full of antibiotics, pumped full of hormones and be fed a soya based or grain based diet.
Dr. Veronica: But if you go to a restaurant and lamb is not an option. I mean most people have some kind of fish, let’s say they have salmon, they have a beef dish, they a chicken dish. In most regular restaurants they have chicken, they have beef they have different types of fish but they’re- Let’s just say they’re all conventional. Which one would be the healthiest to choose, the salmon that’s farmed, the beef that’s not grass-fed or the chicken that’s not free range organic?
Trudy: I wouldn’t eat any of those and I wouldn’t recommend that we eat any of those either. I’m very selective about where I eat, I will eat at home I’ll make home prepared meals. If I go out to visit people I’ll take a meal with me so I can partake and feel comfortable eating it and if I’m going to eat out I will call ahead and make sure that the food that is being served satisfies my needs. I have this, you know I have genetics going on I have this predisposition I don’t need to rock the boat. And so many of my clients I would just want them to get into that mindset you know be prepaid and call ahead and find a place that’s going to work for you. I don’t want to, I don’t recommend compromise.
Dr. Veronica: Okay, so if you go to a restaurant like that and those are proteins, choice is you would recommend going more for a vegetarian dish.
Trudy: No, because I think we need that protein in our meal to help keep our blood sugar stable. If I just had a pure vegetarian meal I wouldn’t do very well on it and eat some protein. So if you are you know that kind of person who is affected by low blood sugar and you might be going somewhere and you get stuck places, I take food with me. I always have a can of sardines with me, don’t laugh but I always been known to having a can of sardines in a restaurant where there was no food that I felt I could eat. So and I have nuts with me and I’ll have fruit with me and if I’m traveling on a business trip I have boiled eggs and I take a beef jerky and I’m prepared. So that’s the level that I go to with my clients is we need to be prepared and not settle for second base. I’ve I answered your question?
Dr. Veronica: Well I think people are thinking you know I’m saying okay if we have to make the choice what do we do and some of us are prepared and other like when I go to the restaurant I’m like, okay let me make the best choice with where I am now. I don’t like to, now I’m around a lot of people who are picky about what they eat and so it ends up being decent most of the time. I don’t end up being in horrible places but on the other side I prefer to just pick the best of the worst. It’s like I’m saying if I have to pick the best of the worst, what’s the best of the worst?
Trudy: So what would you pick, I’m curious?
Dr. Veronica: Well you know, okay it depends on what I’m going through at the particular time. So I would always, I always thought you know maybe chicken is the best thing, not the beef or you know or but I found out from some energetic testing that some of my negative foods maybe because I eat too much of it, were chicken, chicken fat, chicken liver. Which means lay off of these for a while? So I’m at the point now where if I’m going out I’m not picking the chicken usually. I think the chicken usually tends to be the worst, so I usually tend to go towards the fish, so.
Trudy: Yeah and I think it depends on each person if you, if you know for a fact that you have a problem with chicken that has fed grains and I have some clients who have some issues. They are very, very sensitive to grains even when it’s in the feed that the animal is eating. Then you would want to pick something that is going to suit you know what’s going on with you. If you’ve had exposure to heavy metals or you are dealing with the heavy metal issue then you would want to take care of the fish. So I think it’s really is dependent on each person.
Dr. Veronica: Okay, so let’s switch over a little bit. You talk a little bit about, you’re talking about GABA-
Trudy: Can I take a quick break, sorry my battery is running low and I think my computer got unplugged. Can I just plug it in, I’m sure we can finish this up.
Dr. Veronica: No problem, plug it in we’ll make an edit right in the middle.
Trudy: There you go, now we’re back on.
Dr. Veronica: Are we good?
Trudy: Yeah we’re good, sorry about that.
Dr. Veronica: No problem, I’m sitting here eating my cashew. All right, let’s talk about amino acids and how important they are especially vis a vis the emotions. Amino acids, what are they first?
Trudy: So they are compounds that can help us raise our neurotransmitter levels. So they are, amino acids are the building blocks of proteins. So if we ate this beautiful grass-fed when we got enough stomach acid we’re going to digest it and break it down into amino acids and those amino acids are used to make neurotransmitters. Now we can take an amino acid as a supplement and there certain amino acids that help certain emotional aspects and two of those my favorite ones when it comes to anxiety are tryptophan for low serotonin and GABA for low GABA.
Earlier on the discussion you talked about getting whole foods and how do we get on some of these foods. These amino acids help the mood and they also help our cravings, so we can use an amino acid to address low serotonin and that’s going to help us with the low serotonin symptoms of negativity, depression, worry, anxiety and it’s the worry and anxiety in our heads. It will help with PMS, insomnia, TMJ, anger issues. All of these are signs of low serotonin.
But also the other symptoms that we see with low serotonin is afternoon and evening cravings. So if you are the kind of person that after dinner you just have to have something sweet and you’ve got all of these other symptoms, that could be low serotonin and then using and amino acid like tryptophan will raise your serotonin level. So your mood is going to improve, the anxiety is going to go away and you are not going to crave whatever it is, the chocolate chip cookie or a bowl of ice cream after dinner and you’re not going to have to use will power.
The big thing with a lot of the cobs and the sugars and the grains and the braids and the cookies, intellectually we know we shouldn’t be eating them but it’s just an addiction and we will use willpower but will power will often get the best of us and most cases it will. You know you will have this roller cast of being good and then not so good, if we address the biochemistry and we raise those serotonin levels then there’s no will power. We’re not feeling deprived and it makes it easy to make the changes to get off the gluten, to get off the grains to get off the sugar, even to get off coffee. All of these amino acids can help us do that.
Now there’s a different amino acid for each different neurotransmitter deficiency. I mentioned low serotonin and tryptophan. The other one that I really like for anxiety is GABA and with GABA you’ve got this physical tension, so you’ll feel it in your shoulders in your neck you’ll feel tense and you know a lot of people be sitting like this and then take GABA and they just go, I feel so relaxed. With GABA it’s the stuff in tense muscles, it’s a physical tension, panic attacks as well can be caused by low GABA and then with GABA and the cravings it’s the stress eating. So you eat to di-stress, often you’ll drink wine to relax. But using GABA as an amino acid supplement will release that physical tension and then help with that stress eating as well.
Dr. Veronica: So you’re talking about you know reaching for the dessert and you feel like you have to have that. That was so funny because you know I talked about by my father who has suffered from depression for years and years, he’s a diabetic and we were out to dinner he’s in the middle of his dinner and the waitress comes by and he’s already saying, what’s for the dessert.
Trudy: He has saved space for dessert.
Dr. Veronica: Still full of food and he’s asking for dessert. Now the rest of us I was going to say I can’t even eat the dessert, because you know I eat I’m satisfied. Now I think dessert is not always a bad thing but it shouldn’t be that you have to have it all the time. I know for I’ve watched my father do this. If we go out we buy some food and I don’t buy sweets with the food, he’ll go behind me and buy the sweets to make sure he gets his sweet fixed, it’s just that’s how it is.
I had a client who told me how whenever he went through to shopping the aisle where all the candy was on the checkout, he had to grab the candy, he had to. Then he go in a car he eat it and then hide the wrapper but not very good because his wife knew that he was doing this because he’d find the hidden wrappers.
Trudy: Yes it’s an out of control eating, you know we’re addicted and that’s what addicts do. They hide the fact that they’re doing something and we can be as addicted to sugar and cobs] as a drug addict is addicted to street drugs and so we’ve got to realize that it’s an addiction not beat ourselves up but recognize that there’s something we can do and we address the underlying biochemistry. And I talked about low GABA with the stress eating low serotonin with the afternoon and evening cravings is also low endorphins and with low endorphins it’s comfort eating it’s just reward, it’s just I deserve it.
I love chocolate chip cookies you know it’s just really strong emotional connection and when you raise your endorphins the amino acids that are used at that is DPA, D phenylalanine. Then my client will say to me, “Uh, I could take it or leave it”. So we shouldn’t have to be fatting and using willpower when we balance the brain chemistry, it just becomes so much easier. And then the other one that I wanted to mention is glutamine, that’s a favorite amino acid of mine when it comes to sugar cravings.
If you open glutamine capsule on to your tongue or use the powder, it completely takes away that desire for something sweet if it’s related to low blood sugar. And then the other aspect that we haven’t talked about today is leaky guts. If you’ve got leaky guts you are going to have mal-absorption you’re not going to be able to absorb all the nutrients from the beautiful food that you’re eating and glutamine helps to heal the leaky guts as well.
So we’re getting the sugar craving benefits from glutamine and it’s also starting to heal the guts and it’s also a little bit calming, some of it converts to GABA as well so we’re getting those benefits as well. So the amino acids are really quite amazing for helping people to make these changes in their diet and at the same time raising their brain chemical levels they feel good chemicals. So they’re starting to feel harp and they’re feeling happier and they’re feeling joyful and they’re feeling cora and it’s just a wonderful thing to see in my clients.
Dr. Veronica: So now I know that people are thinking now you said the anti-anxiety food solution and you just told us about a bunch of supplements to take. I’m going to say I find supplements helpful in the circumstances that help people get to a balance so that they can have the discipline and desire to follow a food plan that will get their moods feeling better. So when we’re talking about this it’s not that we’re advocating that you just take a bunch of pills and you switch your anxiety pills that are pharmaceuticals for you know a bunch of supplements, it’s about using those as tools to get everything in balance so that you can use food more and you don’t have to be on as many supplements.
Trudy: Absolutely that’s it, absolutely so at the same time that you are using the supplements just you’re starting to make the food changes and you’re moving in that direction and ultimately you still be able to get off the amino acids. So you are just eating a real whole foods diet. There will be awesome instances where you may need in longer term said if you’ve got some genetic mutations, if you’ve got [indiscernible 00:32:11] likely to be able to make serotonin as well, so even if you lower in the foliage area, if you have some of the like there’s a GAD snap for that’s affects how you make GABA.
If you are under a lot of stress at winter time you may need to top up on the amino acids again, our serotonin takes a little bit of a dip in the wintertime so they’re circumstances a lot of women with hormonal shifts after pregnancy we’ll see some shifts, so then you can do a top up again. When you go into menopause we’ll see a shift as well. But you’re right we want to be making the supplement changes in order to facilitate healthy eating and then we should be able to need less of those supplements except under certain circumstances which I’ve just mention.
Dr. Veronica: Okay, so we’re going to talk about the part that can be painful for people. Everything is always about the food, everything is always about what’s in your fork and spoon and what you’re grabbing out the cabinet, we all know that. But let’s go to that part of discussion that people just kind of dread. Problem foods, what tends to be the highest problems food? I can tell you in myself and in my family we found out big problems was, okay my mother and father are diabetic, grandparents are- sugar is the issue, sugar is the issue it makes people crazy. My son last year this time we were taking him to the mental hospital, he was over sugar, number one sugar.
Number two we found out we’re sensitive to eating soya. I found out I was sensitive because my sons were having psychiatric issues and I all of a sudden started answering questions about why I felt bad and I could figure out when I went to the sushi restaurant and I had a mommy and I thought I was doing something very healthy. I figured out why when I came home I was so sick feeling and I couldn’t figure out what did I eat that made me feel so bad and I know the fish wasn’t bad. So that answer the soya was like a big issue for me and we and those are they are common sensitivities.
Now we didn’t manifest for me as a psychiatric issue, it was musculoskeletal pain and I couldn’t figure out why some time I’m hurting and sometime, where does this come from how come some days I’m hurting and I start realizing if I eat- I can eat some but if I eat more, forget it I’m in lots of pain. So talk problem foods that you tend to see in people, if you- people are saying well you talk about the neurotransmitters and do I need to get testing and all that. And I say wait hold on that’s why we have to book, The Antianxiety Food Solution so you can try some strategies before you run off and get tests.
So if somebody is going on and I want to heal my emotional issues as holistically as possible, what foods are you going to tell him, okay here are some of the things that you should eliminate and here is how long you should eliminated to figure out how much problem they are.
Trudy: So I’m glad you mentioned gluten that’s a big one for all my clients. So gluten has to go and I’m glad you mentioned the different of fake, some people will feel it in the gut they have diarrhea, constipation pain. Others those will have the aches and pains; others will have very strong emotional issues. If I’m exposed to gluten I’m [indiscernible 00:35:53] case you know. Right now and the longer you are off it the more affected you are because it is out of your system and then it’s a huge shock to you when you are exposed to it.
And there’s research supporting gluten connection to anxiety, social anxiety I mentioned schizophrenia earlier, bipolar disorder, ADD, ADHT. So gluten is one that definitely has to go and you should see an improvement within a few days, within a week to two weeks you should start to see an improvement. And then if you challenge and add some gluten back. You could feel ache, you could feel a stomach pain, you could feel depressed, you could feel anxious, you could have a panic attacks. So gluten is a big one.
The other one you mentioned soya that’s problematic for a lot of people, it’s often harder to see a direct correlation often found it’s a more subtle effect with soya. The other big one obviously sugar is huge, if you have diabetes or any kind of diabetes in the family that’s a big issue but even if you don’t, sugar is going to give you the sugar high and then you’re going to get a crash, so that can make you anxious.
The other thing is sugar depletes us of zinc and zinc is so important for making our neurotransmitters. It depletes us of our B vitamins, B vitamins are needed for adrenal health that we’ve got burned out of adrenals or we’ve got high cortisol that’s going to make us more anxious. And then we didn’t talk about coffee and that’s a big one.
Dr. Veronica: That’s definitely- you are on the sacred coffee ground now.
Trudy: Exactly, I noted my clients-
Dr. Veronica: I can do without sugar but coffee, oh my god I need that coffee I got to get up in the morning, I want a cup in the afternoon.
Trudy: That’s exactly, you just said exactly what my clients say. I’ll give up the sugar, I’ll give up the gluten I’ll do everything but don’t take my coffee away from me and we self-medicate with coffee just like we do with sugar and just like we do with bread and all of these other things that we self-medicate with to feel good. And we want to get to the root cause of why do we need it in the morning, are we anemic do we have poor adrenal function, do we have low blood sugar are not getting enough sleep, have we got low iron of low piriton. And I’ve had clients of all of the above and once we address the underlying cause of why they need that coffee in the morning then they don’t need the coffee.
The one of the thing which that didn’t mention was that one other amino acid that really helps my clients get off coffee and that’s tyrosine. So one of the signs at this need for coffee is low Clocapramine and these are brain chemicals that help us focus, they give us energy, they give us- make us feel motivated. When you got low Clocapramine you may also feel depressed instead of low kind of, I don’t want to get out of bed depression. A lot of people will use coffee to give them that focus and get them going in the morning.
If you do have the low Clocapramine tyrosine is the amino acid that gives us that focus that gives that clarity. So I’ll have my clients who are just saying I cannot possibly give up coffee have that tyrosine next to the bed. So as they wake in the morning they take the tyrosine and that’s going to get them out of bed give them that energy and make it easier to quit.
Now I do you want to just say that for someone who has never quit coffee it’s not easy in terms of the headaches, the withdrawal symptoms but that should give you a clue as to what it’s doing to your body. It’s a drag you know it’s a drag, it really is a drag and we self-medicate with it. You know I’m always looking for options and are you the kind of person who says, oh I love that warm feeling of something in my mouth early in the morning, I like that ritual. Find something to replace it and kero with a little bit of coconut milk or maybe a little bit of batter is a wonderful alternative with a little bit of cinnamon. And then rooibos tea is a wonderful herbal tea that has very similar properties to green tea and it’s been shown to help with pre-diabetes and it helps with adrenal balance.
So adding in something like rooibos tea, r-o-o-i-b-o-s or rich bush. It’s from South Africa where I grew up, a wonderful alternative. So we just need to be kind to ourselves and recognize that some of the things that we’re doing are not in our best interests and caffeine is one of them. If you have anxiety the caffeine really has to go because it could be affecting your anxiety levels and it could be affecting your sleep and even people who say I only have one cup in the morning, could it really be affecting my sleep? Yes it could be. So sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
Dr. Veronica: Okay, so you mentioned tea for ammonia you told us about rooibos tea but we’ve all been taught that green tea is healthy for us. And actually I know that the- healthy and even green tea works synergistically that actually help relax some people. But talk about drinking tea instead of coffee. For my clients in the beginning it’s no caffeine that includes tea. But then when figure out what they’re sensitive to and if they’re sensitive to the coffee or what’s going on.
Then later on it’s like okay rather than adding back coffee can we get back some tea because here are the benefits and here is why I’m doing the tea. So talk about tea for a minute, not the rooibos, I love rooibos tea it’s so delicious. But for people who have not tried rooibos tea, go out and try some rooibos tea because it’s very good. So talk about regular like green tea because that’s all that range for people.
Trudy: So I love green tea because of all you know that antioxidants, the polyphenols does have the [indiscernible 00:42:01] and as you say which is can be give you that focus and also be calming. There is a subset of people though that are just more prone to the effects of caffeine and even that small amount of caffeine could be problematic. So I love your idea of get off the coffee, get off the all the caffeinated beverages and then see how you do.
If you add back a little bit of green tea and you feel anxious then you know that it’s too much for you and I am super, super sensitive to caffeine and I remember going to, go friend’s house and after dinner she brings out her herbal teas and she says these are all caffeine free and I had a couple something. You know I should have really looked at the label carefully but I was up at whole notch and I felt like I was you know like this little jitter back person and the next day I hold it up and it was something that had a little bit of green tea in it.
So if you are that sensitive and you’re affected by it then you obviously can’t have it. But otherwise I would say that that could be a different- And then there is other herbal tea, you know tulsi is a herb from India that is wonderful for adrenal support. Some of my client’s don’t really like just the tulsi plain so you could a lemon ginger tulsi. You could get a licorice tea with someone who wants something sweet, now licorice a lot of people say, oh candy I can have some licorice but this is the herb licorice but it’s got a natural sweetness and licorice as a herb is wonderful for adrenal support. It’s wonderful for hormone support. So maybe finding something like that is going to surpass that need for something. So I’ll just say find something that works for you and go with it. You know it’s going to be different for each person.
Dr. Veronica: One word about the licorice, a lot of people who have high blood pressure are told not to eat licorice. Can you comment on that?
Trudy: So there is a concern with taking a supplement with high amounts of licorice and blood pressure. There is a decreased resisted licorice that is not going to affect a blood pressure and I think it’s again monitoring if someone does have high blood pressure. Hopefully they’re making some dietary changes to bring their blood pressure down but certainly as a supplement it is something that we need to be aware of and it is a caution. So yeah, I’m glad you brought that up.
Dr. Veronica: Yeah I think people should monitor themselves because everybody’s not sensitive to everything and so I tell people before they try something if it’s something that’s of concern, I say you have to monitor your own blood pressure, have your own pulse taken in the morning, see what it is and then try half a dose of whatever it is and monitor your blood pressure for a few days and see if there’s any change in it and you know titrate, you know monitor yourself. This is about personal responsibility because a lot of conventional doctors will say I don’t eat this don’t do that blah, blah, blah, blah, blah but it’s based on more of a fear attack they got a blanket statement as opposed to what is good for the particular individual.
Trudy: Absolutely.
Dr. Veronica: -somebody just like diabetics monitor their blood sugar, the people who are hypertensive should always be regular checking their blood pressure because the licorice may be something you know about but there could be some other food that throws you out of balance too that you don’t know about. So you need to monitor yourself very carefully.
Trudy: I totally agree and going to what you’re saying a blanket statement, a lot of people with high blood pressure told any salt which is absolute you know it’s who are, it’s a small subset of people with high blood pressure that are affected by it and certainly when this discussion is made no one ever talks about the quality of salts. So basically you know we want to be having good quality sea salt that’s mineral rich doesn’t have all the fillers and you know hasn’t been hardnosed and so there is many different elements.
So yes we need to look at it on a case by case basis and see how we respond. I love that idea and if someone has high blood pressure they should have their own you know at home monitors, so they can monitor and see how things are affecting me. We need to be empowered and taking charge of our own health.
Dr. Veronica: Yes, one word about the salt. A lot of the salt that people are having problems with is the poor quality kind, I don’t want to mention any brands but the kind you buy from the store usually is not, is refined. It’s the unrefined salts like the Himalayan sea salt, the Celtic sea salt which actually can help people with blood pressure. Don’t try to this at home, try it under- but what I’m saying is a lot of people’s blood pressure is caused by mineral deficiencies and these different types of salts that are Celtics sea salt or Himalayan sea salt are rich in minerals and actually can help people’s blood pressure because they’re replacing minerals, so this is something that you should talk about.
You may not talk about it with your conventional doctor because they’re not aware of this and they’re going to total line and tell you whatever they’ve been told but understand that there are many minerals that cause- If you have high blood pressure you likely have a mineral deficiency, likely and so therefore there are ways that you can test it and then you can try things like these type of salts with a lot of times help people and don’t hurt them but the other thing is you can replace minerals in supplements and you can make food plans to be more mineral rich.
So people with blood pressure just don’t go with the blanket statement. First buy your own blood pressure monitor and start checking, okay. Start checking and then you’re going to know what’s going on and what you’re going to have in that. It’s the processed food with all the added salt that’s a problem and so the- and the soup with the a million milligrams of sodium, those are the ones because there’s not the high quality unrefined salt. But your Cheetos and Doritos, that’s the problem.
Trudy: Not to mention all other crap in there.
Dr. Veronica: Yeah, it’s the processed foods that tend to be the problem. If you make your own soup at home and you’re adding salt to it you’re probably not going to have a problem with your blood pressure from that added salt. But if you’re eating the canned even the one that says low sodium is high in sodium especially that it’s the refined sodium. And guess what all this type of salt whether it affects your body, your blood pressure ultimately affects your mood too, right.
Trudy: Absolutely I was about to say that, yeah big impact on anxiety and mood.
Dr. Veronica: So we’re going a little long here, I want some parting word. I want people this is Trudy Scott go you’ll see in the show notes where you can get The Antianxiety Food Solution, this is a great book this is one that I looked and I was like, this is like they should give this to every medical student and every doctor, this is like wonderful. It is a wonderful book because it talks about the supplements it talks about the food and I was like, wow this is a great hand book anybody- The kind of book where I’m like if I find somebody who has a mental problem this is the book that I’m part of their program is I’m buying them this book.
Trudy: Thank you Dr. Veronica.
Dr. Veronica: So parting words, Trudy.
Trudy: I just always say know that there’s an answer out there, so you might be in the midst of feeling anxious you may be having panic attacks and you may be looking for answers. I always want to say there is an answer for you, it’s a matter of finding the answer. We’ve talked about amino acids and how powerful they can be to help eliminate the anxiety; we’ve talked about some of the food strategies to implement. We’ve just touched the surface here but some people just adding going from junk food to real food is enough. For other people they need to also do the supplements.
Then we have the next level down where you’ve got Lyme disease, where you may have heavy metals, where you may have some kind of infection, where you may have been exposed to fluoroquinolone antibiotics, you may be on benzodiazepines. We didn’t even talk about those, getting off the, you know the anti-anxiety medications can be very difficult. So think about the basics, think about the supplements and then if you’re not getting answers then you need to dig deeper to find what the trigger is, what might be contributing to your anxiety and there is an answer and have hope and know that you deserve to feel your absolute best and you should be able to feel on top of the world.
And that’s my message is have hope and keep looking for answers and find a practitioner who can support you that you not clashing against. Because I have too often from people saying that my doctor doesn’t believe this, they don’t want to do this you know. Dr. Veronica you just made such a great comment about my book. Take the book into your doctor and it’s highly reference, I’ve got all the studies in the back and educate your doctor if that’s what you need to do, or find a new doctor. Someone who’s going to support you, so that’s my closing message. Have hope and know that you deserve to feel your absolute best and that there is an answer for your issues.
Dr. Veronica: Wonderful, thank you so much Trudy mwah, I love the book I really do it’s very helpful and this is one of the keepers. Thank you so much for being on the Wellness Revolution.
Trudy: Thanks Dr. Veronica it was really fun talking to you and I really enjoyed it.
Female VO: Thank you for listening to the Wellness Revolution Podcast. If you want to hear more on how to bring wellness into your life. Visit drveronica.com. See you all next week, take care.
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Dr. Veronica Anderson is an MD, Functional Medicine Practitioner, Homeopath. and Medical Intuitive. As a national speaker and designer of the Functional Fix and Rejuvenation Journey programs, she helps people who feel like their doctors have failed them. She advocates science-based natural, holistic, and complementary treatments to address the root cause of disease. Dr. Veronica is a highly-sought guest on national television and syndicated radio and hosts her own radio show, Wellness for the REAL World, on FOX Sports 920 AM “the Jersey” on Mondays at 7:00 pm ET.
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