Episode 50 The Impact of Blood Sugar on Mental Health with Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo

Feb 16, 2022

Can untreated elevated blood sugar levels contribute to anxiety and depression? Which blood sugar-related symptoms can therapists look out for in their clients? What can you do to reduce insulin resistance?

MEET DR. RITAMARIE LOSCALZO

Dr. Ritamarie specializes in using the wisdom of nature to restore balance to hormones. She places a special emphasis on thyroid, adrenal, and insulin imbalances. Dr. Ritamarie founded the Institute of Nutritional Endocrinology to empower health and nutrition practitioners to get to the root cause of health concerns by using functional assessments and natural therapeutics to balance the endocrine system, the body’s master controller.

Dr. Ritamarie is trained and certified in the art of using whole, fresh plant foods in delicious ways to restore balance to hormones and body systems, and she’s trained and certified other health and wellness professionals – doctors, nurses, nutritionists, health coaches — in the art of using palate-pleasing, whole fresh food as medicine.

Visit her website, and connect with Dr. Ritamarie on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

Listen to her Reinvent Healthcare podcast and read her books.

IN THIS PODCAST:

  • How does blood sugar impact mental health?
  • Which blood sugar-related symptoms therapists can therapists look out for?
  • How to treat and steady blood sugar levels

How does blood sugar impact mental health?

When the blood sugar is out of balance with symptoms [like] … cranky, irritable … are related not just to low blood sugar … but when I do the testing on people, most of them [actually have] high blood sugar but the sugar is not getting into the cells because of a condition called insulin resistance. (Dr. Ritamarie)

Insulin is a hormone that transports sugar into the cells for the body to have energy.

Cells can become insulin resistant over time if someone eats too much sugar too frequently. Therefore, they have high blood sugar, but low levels of cellular sugar.

Sporadic blood sugar levels impact your memory, mood, attention span, ability to focus, as well as your production of serotonin and dopamine – happy hormones – in the gut and brain.

Which blood sugar-related symptoms therapists can therapists look out for?

Therapists should lookout for some of the following symptoms in their clients that could relate to imbalanced blood sugar levels:

  • If a client cannot go for two hours between meals and snacks without feeling cranky, moody, or irritable.
  • If a client still feels hungry after eating a full meal.
  • If the client is prone to exhaustion in the afternoon.
  • If a client struggles to get up and start their day without a cup of coffee.
  • If a client is constantly craving sugar and carbohydrates.

You have to look at the possibility of blood sugar [imbalances]. It is so overlooked … you know, the most common cause of sudden death from health failure is insulin resistance. (Dr. Loscalzo)

How to treat and steady blood sugar levels

1 – Observe diet

Limit your intake of processed and highly refined food.

Blood sugar imbalance leads to immune imbalance. The folks that have dysregulated blood sugar are going to have more problems with infectious diseases. (Dr. Loscalzo)

2 – Be conscious of your vitamin and mineral intake.

Highly sugary and processed foods can block or minimize the body’s ability to absorb nutrients, vitamins, and minerals.

Eat raw, healthy, whole foods wherever possible to ensure a higher vitamin content and take a good supplement.

3 – Reduce stress

Cortisol, the stress hormone, seeks out glucose – sugar – in the body to put into the blood when the person is feeling stressed or anxious.

Stress hormones cause a spike in blood sugar to help you run away from the stressor, like a lion. However, we have no lions in our streets, but we do have emotional and mental stressors daily.

Connect With Me

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Resources Mentioned And Useful Links:

BOOK | Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo – Hormone-Hacking Breakfast Menus

Visit her website, and connect with Dr. Ritamarie on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

Listen to her Reinvent Healthcare podcast and read her books.

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Transcript

[CHRIS McDONALD]

The Holistic Counseling Podcast is part of the Practice of the Practice network, a network of podcasts seeking to help you market and grow your business and yourself. To hear other podcasts like Behind the Bite, Full of Shift and Impact Driven Leader, go to www.practiceofthepractice.com/network.

Welcome to the Holistic Counseling Podcast, where you discover diverse wellness modalities, advice on growing your integrative practice, and grow confidence in being your unique self. I'm your host, Chris McDonald. I'm so glad you're here for the journey.

Welcome to today's episode of the Holistic Counseling Podcast. I'm your host, Chris McDonald. I am super excited to bring you today's guest. She has an unusual topic, which I've not heard covered on other podcasts. Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo is here today to discuss how blood sugar can impact mental health, what are potential physical causes for other mental health issues and what symptom may be as well as how they can be treated. She is a functional medicine doctor specializing in blood sugar. She's an internationally recognized expert in nutritional, endocrinology and founder of the Institute of Nutritional Endocrinology.

She trains, doctors, nurses, nutritionists, health coaches, and other practitioners in the science of rebalancing hormones and restoring energy using nutrition and lifestyle approaches, which makes her perfect for this podcast. As a doctor of chiropractic with a master's degree in nutrition and certifications in herbal medicine, acupuncture and heart math. Dr. Ritamarie is passionately committed to transforming our broken disease management system into a true healthcare system where each and every practitioner is skilled at finding the root cause of health challenges and uses the wisdom of nature combined with modern science to restore balance to the body. Welcome to the podcast Dr. Ritamarie.

[DR. RITAMARIE LOSCALZO]

Thank you so much for inviting me here and for allowing me the opportunity to about my favorite topic.

[CHRIS]

You have so much background and certifications. Very impressive.

[DR. RITAMARIE]

Thank you. I was like a perpetual student.

[CHRIS]

Oh, had a breath. I love it. I can tell when somebody has that many training that you're really passionate about what you do, aren't you?

[DR. RITAMARIE]

I'm totally passionate about what I do. My big passion and what I feel is my mission is to transform this system that is broken and people don't get the care they need, and we're starting a podcast and a day dedicated to that next year called reinvent healthcare.

[CHRIS]

Fantastic. So I'm sure that will reach a lot more people too.

[DR. RITAMARIE]

Yes.

[CHRIS]

So is there anything else you wanted to share about yourself in your work?

[DR. RITAMARIE]

Yes, I would say I'm a geek when it comes to nerding out on the nutrition and the science. So if I ---

[CHRIS]

Nothing wrong with that.

[DR. RITAMARIE]

You can reel me in. But I love sharing. I find that when I share with folks how the body, how the blood sugar, how the brain, how all that works, they're much more inclined to take the actions that I recommend.

[CHRIS]

That makes sense. So part of what you do is psychoeducation,. it's really true.

[DR. RITAMARIE]

Big part is education.

[CHRIS]

That's important. So I guess, what interested you in treating blood sugar as a specialty? I didn't even know that could be a specialty. I'm in the mental health world.

[DR. RITAMARIE]

Well, anything can be a specialty. Anything can be a specialty. Well, why blood sugar? Because as I was going through practice and working with people, I kept finding that they had undiagnosed, unidentified blood sugar imbalances and when I started researching and learning about this, I realized that the underlying cause of just about every condition that plagues us in modern society was related to blood sugar. So mental health, digestive health, cardiovascular health, all of these things have an underlying and an underpinning in blood sugar imbalance. It's usually overlooked because people don't get "diagnosed" until they actually have diabetes. The damage that it does to the brain, to the gut, to the heart, to the blood vessels happens decades before the actual diagnosis. So I got passionate about helping people with this.

[CHRIS]

So it sounds like you're more interested in doing the preventative too, so it doesn't get that bad for people.

[DR. RITAMARIE]

Exactly. Like if somebody could tell you here, take these steps and you won't get diabetes, which codes with blindness and amputation and horrible dialysis and all these bad side effects, what if you could prevent that by making diet and lifestyle changes decades in advance?

[CHRIS]

I know my limited knowledge, I'm a mental health practitioner, on blood sugar is, I know a lot of people get cranky or hungry when they haven't eaten in a while. But I guess what is that impact of blood sugar on mental health? How do we, how is that interconnected?

[DR. RITAMARIE]

There's so many ways. So when the blood sugar is out of balance and those symptoms, you just described cranky and irritable and all that are identified. And it's actually related, in my experience it's related not just to low blood sugar, which people identify those symptoms. Although I haven't eaten in a while. But actually when I actually do the testing on people, most of them are actually high. The blood sugar high, but the sugar is not getting into the cells because of a condition called insulin resistance. Insulin is a hormone that takes the sugar and it escorts it into the cells so that we can make energy. When the cells become resistant because we've been eating too much sugar, eating too much of the foods that damage the receptors, the insulin can't get into the cell. So we have this high blood sugar, but low cellular sugar level and we get cranky and irritable.

So that's one way, but there's so many others. We're finding now that Alzheimer's is related to blood sugar imbalance. I mean that's a biggie and that's like severe memory loss. But think about, I like to think about things in gradiations. So Alzheimer's is a diagnosable condition where there's damage to the brain and there's some issues going on where we can't remember things. It usually affects short term memory. What happens is over time, imagine that it's not to that point where it's Alzheimer's, but it's that, where do I put my keys? What's your name and those little things and that's all affected.

[CHRIS]

Are you talking about me?

[DR. RITAMARIE]

No. See, right? It's a very common problem. Most people aren't recognizing it as related to bunch of ---

[CHRIS]

No, I wouldn't even think that.

[DR. RITAMARIE]

Right.

[CHRIS]

Wow. So even it affects memory. That's something.

[DR. RITAMARIE]

It affects memory big time. It affect Emery big time. It affects mood because if you're not getting the sugar into the right parts of the brain, then we're not going to have the mood. It affects neurotransmitter production, it'll affect the various parts of the brain that need to function right, to have good mental health. We find that kids with attention deficit, which we see, I'm sure you see a lot being in the mental health field. A lot of that is blood sugar imbalance.

[CHRIS]

Oh my goodness. Wow. I never even put that together and as a holistic provider, I always try to consider there could be other health things, but I guess I never thought about blood sugar as being such a big impact.

[DR. RITAMARIE]

When you think about the amount of sugar that the average person needs, 150 pounds a year is said to be the average in the US. It's a little higher in other countries actually. And I don't eat any of it. My kids don't eat any of it. So somebody's eating our share. So that's a lot of sugar over the course of a year, and that has serious impact on the hormone system, on mental health on pretty much everything. So we need to get control of this thing.

[CHRIS]

So what is the impact on anxiety? If someone comes to you and they have a lot of anxiety, are you able to find something a lot of times with blood sugar?

[DR. RITAMARIE]

Yes. Here's my approach. I don't believe in this for that approach. I don't believe in this herb gets taken for anxiety and this right condition is related to, I like to look at the holistic picture. So we always start with blood sugar because if you don't get the blood sugar balance, you can't get everything else in balance. There's a lot of studies that show even related to thyroid. We know that thyroid malfunction can be related to depression. We know that, I know you specifically asked about anxiety. We know that it affects adrenal function, the adrenal glands, which control that fear, fight, flight situation. When we're in that hyper sympathetic state, the part of the nervous system that runs away from tigers and protects us from fear or from fearful events, then we cannot have balance in the body. We cannot have brain balance. And people who are hyper in the sympathetic nervous system, they're anxious all the time. There's this less constant level of what I call hyper vigilance that's happening all the time.

[CHRIS]

It just makes me think about some clients that I have, or have had that they we do traditional treatment. I do some of the even holistic strategies for it but they're still struggling. I wonder if some of them there might be more of a physical cause.

[DR. RITAMARIE]

Absolutely. You got to look at digestion as well because there's so many of the microbiome balance has such an effect on the brain. And the direct connection, blood sugar with, this might be a little too technical, but blood sugar and anxiety is the relationship to GABA. There's a specific enzyme called glutamic acid, decarboxylase that converts from glutamic acid, which is an excitatory neurotransmitter into GABA, which is a calming neurotransmitter. If that pathway, that DAD pathway is not working efficiently, then they're going to be more anxious because they're not making enough GABA. Guess what? Some of that GABA gets produced in the pancreas and it's impacted by blood sugar imbalance.

[CHRIS]

Oh wow. And I guess thinking about depression too, is it different for depression? Is they're something not being produced.

[DR. RITAMARIE]

Yes. Well with depression it depends on what kind of depression. There's serotonin depression. There's immune depression. There's all kinds of things that can relate to it. But big thing is thyroid. We see that ---

[CHRIS]

I think people go to the doctor and say, you need to go for homework, to get your thyroid tested.

[DR. RITAMARIE]

You need to get your, if you're depressed, don't like just immediately go to Prozac.

[CHRIS]

No, no, definitely not.

[DR. RITAMARIE]

It's crazy. We look at the thyroid, we have to look at the gut, we have to look at the blood sugar. We have to look at nutrient balance. So how well are people eating? Are they low in B vitamins? Are they, because you need those B vitamins for the neurotransmitter pathways. You need vitamin C, copper. There's other nutrients in there. And of course, there are genetic tendencies that people have, but those can all be compensated for by proper attention to diet.

[CHRIS]

Really? So even if they have that propensity in their genetics, they could still try to work through ---

[DR. RITAMARIE]

Oh, absolutely. We look at that. I look at genetics. I look at there's a bunch of dopamine related neurotransmitter, what they call snip, single nucleotide polymorphism. So basically genetic variants. When people have these, I look at what are the pathways involved with that? Then what nutrients might they be deficient in so that they're not doing the right conversions to get to the end state of adequate dopamine to maintain or adequate serotonin to maintain.

[CHRIS]

I'm wondering too, if somebody has a lot of trauma history, if that throws off everything too.

[DR. RITAMARIE]

Absolutely, absolutely. It's huge. I mean this whole ACEs study, the adverse childhood was right. That affects them long term if they're not addressed.

[CHRIS]

Wow. So what symptoms should therapists look out for that maybe blood sugar might be out of range and cause some of these symptoms?

[DR. RITAMARIE]

Absolutely great questions. So you mentioned them before that I can't be more than two hours away from a meal without getting all anxious and irritable. Hungry, even after eating a big meal. I'm still hungry. That could be a sign of insulin resistance. That exhaustion that happens at three in the afternoon that everybody thinks is normal because everybody they know has it, no, no, no, no. That could be blood sugar imbalance. The inability to get going in the morning without that cup of coffee, because they're not getting their sugar into their cells, craving for sweets, craving for carbs to try to get their energy up. But their are not actually getting that into the cells. They have to keep eating more and more and more.

[CHRIS]

That could probably cause weight gain and cause more problems.

[DR. RITAMARIE]

Oh that, oh yes. Weight gain, weight gain around the middle, big time.

[CHRIS]

Yes, because I find that to be a big issue with a lot of clients I see, is a lot of tiredness and they just can't seem to get themselves going no matter what.

[DR. RITAMARIE]

Exactly. They can't get themselves going. It's very common and there's a lot of under underlying causes wrong for that. But you really have to look at the possibility of blood sugar and yes it's just so overlooked. One of the, so the most common cause of sudden death from heart failure is insulin resistance.

[CHRIS]

Really?

[DR. RITAMARIE]

Yep.

[CHRIS]

You are full of surprises today.

[DR. RITAMARIE]

A lot of stuff. That's why I'm so passionate about studying it because ---

[CHRIS]

I think a lot of people don't know this too.

[DR. RITAMARIE]

They don't know it. They don't realize, oh, I'm not diabetic. So I'm fine.

[CHRIS]

I'm good.

[DR. RITAMARIE]

I'm good.

[CHRIS]

Hmm. So there is like really long term impact with this.

[DR. RITAMARIE]

It's a long term impact. Personally I had two parents who died very young of heart attacks. As I look back knowing what I now know, I didn't know then I believe that they had insulin and that, that was contributing to the stiffening of their arteries. Because for a number of reasons, when I look at the genetics, in our family, we have more tendency to diabetes than we do to heart disease. That stiffening of the blood vessels comes from excess insulin and that can lead to sudden heart attack.

[CHRIS]

So how can all this be treated?

[DR. RITAMARIE]

Oh yes.

[CHRIS]

Your favorite part actually.

[DR. RITAMARIE]

It's easy to treat if people are willing to do it. So you have to look carefully at the diet and the diet is super important and it's getting off of all that process-refined food, getting off of the the carbohydrates. People think of sugar. I don't eat sugar. Well do you eat honey or maple syrup? Those things can contribute. But they also eat a lot of bread and pasta and those things which get treated by the body like sugar.

[CHRIS]

That's what I learned, was diabetes too.

[DR. RITAMARIE]

Yep. Well, anything that applies to diabetes applies to early intervention, but there's things they don't teach diabetics. So the food is super important and it's a little bit different than what they teach diabetics, like the exchanges. You got three of this and four of that and like, no, that's not the appropriate way to do it. I have people get their own blood sugar meters and test to see how does that food impact you? Any of the foods that cause a high spike in sugar, after a meal, very easy to test, $15 piece of equipment. You can buy at any Walgreens drug store and you go, whoa, wow, reach out for me, it was a shocker. Every time I ate pineapple, my sugar went through the roof. I'm like, but pineapple's a good food. Well, we can help you restore the insulin sensitivity and then be able to eat the good foods of that group. But I don't recommend people go back and eat cotton candy again. Makes sense.

[CHRIS]

Yes.

[DR. RITAMARIE]

But it's also more than that. It's the lifestyle. So there stress is involved. Especially now this last year and a half, almost two years, people have been stressed to the max and what they are not realizing is that blood sugar imbalance leads to immune imbalance and that the folks that have the dysregulated blood sugar are going to have more problems with infectious disease. What we find with our current situation in this pandemic is that the people have the worst outcomes are actually the ones that have blood sugar imbalance.

[CHRIS]

Oh my goodness, facts, everything, doesn't it?

[DR. RITAMARIE]

Everything. So we look at the food, we look at also some nutrients, which gets, they're actually refined out of most of the food, but they also are depleted even further when folks have this high influx of sugar into the body and they're dealing with insulin resistance. So magnesium and chromium and zinc and B vitamins, super important. Those, and they're overlooked by the medical community when they're treating diabetes. It's just here, take insulin or take Metformin, but in reality, you can, by changing the diet by adding some of these nutrients in either through food or through supplementation and then looking at stress.

We're all I started talking about, about a minute ago. Stress to the max and cortisol is a hormone that get's produced. It's huge. That affects the hippocampus. So that has an effect on mental health and it causes memory issues, but it also causes the body to go find sources of glucose in the body to put into the blood so we can run away from the tiger. Well, last time I looked, there were no tigers in my life, but there were a lot of mental, emotional stressors. So the stress is huge and we teach people, techniques like heart math. You mentioned in my bio I teach that. There's all kinds of things ---

[CHRIS]

What is that?

[DR. RITAMARIE]

It's a technique that was discovered by the Institute of Heart Math and they've done elaborate technical studies on it to show that when you get stressed, you have high levels of cortisol but when you combine breathing, deep breathing, like you're taking a yoga class and appreciation that you can drop those levels almost instantaneously. You can go from sympathetic nervous system, which is fight, fight to parasympathetic where all the healing happens, the calmness, very quickly, very, very quickly.

[CHRIS]

Amazing, isn't it?

[DR. RITAMARIE]

It's amazing. It's totally amazing.

[CHRIS]

We can't underestimate the power of our breath.

[DR. RITAMARIE]

No, the breath and the appreciation, that heartfelt stuff. Right now in this world, the way it is, everybody's like at each other. Like, I'm right, you're right. I'm not. There's just a lot of lack of appreciation. When we can go and drop into heart, that's when we make a huge difference.

[CHRIS]

You said appreciation, so is it gratitude or what do you mean by appreciation?

[DR. RITAMARIE]

Appreciation, thankfulness. We just had a holiday year in the US. Thanksgiving. So many people forget what the true meeting is. They're into, how big is your turkey? How much stuffing, what stuffing you're going to make.

[CHRIS]

How big is your spread?

[DR. RITAMARIE]

Yes, exactly. It's really about how much you appreciate and how much gratitude you give.

[CHRIS]

I know you mentioned testing blood sugar. So when we go to our primary care doctor, is there stuff that can be picked up there or is there special kinds of testing we should get?

[DR. RITAMARIE]

There's stuff that can be picked up there but in addition, the blood sugar monitor. Most doctors don't test a parameter called A1C, hemoglobin A1C until you're actually diabetic. They're missing the boat, because they can detect somebody where those numbers are creeping up decades in advance of becoming diabetic. We've had this happen. I've seen this in my client population where people have just gone into a health there and they happened to test A1C and found out that theirs was through the roof. And they were starting to get some of the downside side effects of diabetes but they'd never been diagnosed because they're fasting blood sugar, which is what most doctors will check. Was not out at that range.

So they basically were starting to get the neuropathies and their feet, the problems in their eyes, the retinopathies before they actually got the diagnosis, which is why I am so passionate about teaching people this. You want to wait until you're going blind before you realize you have a blood sugar problem. So hemoglobin A1C is important. And insulin, which most doctors don't test again until the person's diabetic and even then they don't do it unless they're type one on insulin. But really you can look at those levels and you can tell that somebody's heading in the bad direction. And those are simple. I like to do what I call post, what's known as postprandial. It's not what I call it. It's what it's called, postprandial glucose testing. You basically get your meter and I have a specific frequency that have people do it and jot down their numbers, but also their food and their activity and their stress and start to see the connections.

[CHRIS]

Okay. Wow. So I'm just thinking about that, like waiting too late to treat people for these issues.

[DR. RITAMARIE]

Exactly, exactly. You know, how, especially when you're dealing with mental health, people have been dealing with these issues for how long. You want to help people get their life back, get their vigor back without having to go on all kinds of medications. That only usually works for a short term. Well, these are ways to do it. This is critical. This is the first thing I check with everybody. We check their blood sugar.

[CHRIS]

Okay. So what are other physical causes do you think for mental health issues? Is there more than just blood sugar?

[DR. RITAMARIE]

Well, there's a lot of that. There's nutritional impacts. The neurotransmitters need to be created. If somebody doesn't have good digestion, especially stomach acid, they're not breaking down their foods into the appropriate amino acids. They don't have those amino acid precursors to make neurotransmitters. If they don't have good B vitamin status, like they are eating one of these diets, that's loaded with fast food and processed food, they don't have enough B vitamins to actually be the precursors to take those amino acids and convert them into neurotransmitters. Then of course the microbiome. There are certain organisms that live in the gut that when they get out of balance, we are not making as much of the GABA, the dopamine, the serotonin, et cetera. So that's another reason. Of course, like I said, nutrient imbalances could be caused by bad digestion. It could be just caused by bad diet. The stress levels are huge.

[CHRIS]

Yes. So what do you recommend that listeners do to keep their blood sugar levels in balance?

[DR. RITAMARIE]

Really look at what you're eating. I know you hear this over and over ---

[CHRIS]

We do.

[DR. RITAMARIE]

Don't eat crap. Don't eat processed food, don't eat sugar, but it can't be said enough. It's the enemy really. It's just pulled out of real food without the nutrients, without all the rest of the good stuff that's in that food. So getting off the processed food, avoiding chemicals, like organic as much as possible is helpful because some of those pesticides have an effect on the cell membranes and the absorption and the receptors, not just for insulin, but for all hormones. Yes, reducing stress. When you find yourself in that stress out state, calm yourself down and look into Heart Math, because it's an amazing process.

[CHRIS]

So what holistic strategies do you use as part of your daily practice?

[DR. RITAMARIE]

Me? I wake up in the morning and I meditate. I actually wear an oura ring to test my sleep really because I was in a bad situation with sleep. I just was like, I don't need sleep. I don't need sleep. So now I look at it and I'm really dedicated to getting that seven to nine hours of sleep every night because that makes a huge difference on your blood sugar.

[CHRIS]

What is that you said, is that aura ring?

[DR. RITAMARIE]

Oura, O-U -R-A, oura ring.

[CHRIS]

What is that?

[DR. RITAMARIE]

It's a ring you wear and it has these little electrodes on the inside and it measures your heart rate, your variability, it measures the sleep cycles, which is really cool. You get to see how much deep and how much and all that stuff. It's an awesome tool. There's others, there's Fitbit and there's Garin watches but this is the easiest one for me. I don't like wearing watches. This is real easy. I just wear it. I lost, my wedding ring got taken off when I broke my arm and didn't never fit back on my finger. So now I wear it instead of a wedding ring and my husband wears one too. So we are really very via our orderings. Yes, it's cool.

So those are some of the things for sure for me. I just eat really well. I stay hydrated. That's super important. Make sure half your body weight and fluid ounces of water it's throughout the day. I eat really good food. I don't, I'm off of the junk. I used to be a junk food junkie. I used to eat sugar. I don't do any of that anymore. And I figured out ways to create some of my old favorites in a healthy way. So I still eat pizza and I still eat ice cream, but it's a different ice cream. It's gluten-free and free-dairy, sugar-free and it tastes phenomenal and people are loving my recipes.

[CHRIS]

So do you eat plant-based or do you eat ---

[DR. RITAMARIE]

I eat plant-based. I've been plant-based for 35 years.

[CHRIS]

Wow. Oh my gosh.

[DR. RITAMARIE]

Yep. And I would never, I don't miss it. The dairy, I used to love the cheeses. I make own or buy plant-based cheeses if I really want that. But most of the time I'm eating like just really highly nourishing foods. I'm a little bit, from my perspective because of my genetics, and I've seen this with a lot of folks, I look more towards the keto plant-based than the plant-based. I don't do grains and beans and all those just because of my blood sugar but I do more of a keto a plant-based ---

[CHRIS]

I didn't know there was a keto plant-based.

[DR. RITAMARIE]

Well, there is. It works really well. I eat a lot of vegetables, huge amount of vegetables, not like the typical keto where they take you off vegetables because they're too high in carbs. No, no, no, no,

[CHRIS]

No.

[DR. RITAMARIE]

No, no, no, no, no. We don't want any diet that's going to take us off vegetables. So I eat low glycemic fruits. I eat plant-based. I eat lots of veggies. I eat nuts and seeds and avocados and olives and coconut and don't do oils, which is the thing people look at with keto like, oh oil, that's not good. I don't even do those. So I just eat whole foods, plant-based fats and lots and lots of veggies. And yes, some folks that, patients and whatnot, they don't want to give up meat so they have a little been organically raised, pastured, hormone free, et cetera, meats along with that.

[CHRIS]

You said you have kids too, that you have tried to promote this lifestyle.

[DR. RITAMARIE]

Oh, my kids grew up on this lifestyle from the time they were born. They're not in my house anymore. They're 23 and 27. They're strapping men with these very muscular, but yes, they grew up on it. They never had junk. I remember my son being like three years old and seeing somebody eating a cookie and he's like, "Mommy, what that? What that?" "Oh, it's called a cookie." "What's in it?" I told him and he goes, "Why do people eat that?" I said, because it tastes good. He goes, but yucky, it's bad for them. Because I told, I had already told him that the flour, the sugar, the eggs, whatever else was in there and the preservatives and all the other garbage that they put in kids' foods, I'd told him they weren't good for him. So he would like, why do people eat that if it's not good for them?

[CHRIS]

Good question.

[DR. RITAMARIE]

Well, they're focused on taste rather than focused on their health. My son is totally focused on his health. Totally. He'll have a "cheat day" where he eats a little bit higher calories or whatever and then he goes back and says, nope, by hot like Thanksgiving. Okay, we have a cheat day today. Not that we had anything bad for Thanksgiving, but he just ate more than he normally would, just really conscientious about it. He might have eaten right before bed because there were leftovers or something like that where normally he wouldn't.

[CHRIS]

Wow. So that starts young then too. I'm sure that probably helps a lot because I think when you work with adults too, it's harder to change eating habits sometimes.

[DR. RITAMARIE]

And I changed mine when I was 28. It's really, here's the thing. You have to focus on what's really important to you. Is eating pizza more important than feeling good? I don't think so. I always say nothing tastes as good as healthy feels. And I'm not giving up how I feel for the taste of anything.

[CHRIS]

That makes sense. And I think people got to be careful with diets too, because like you said you could be missing important nutrients and thinking you're doing the right thing, but then you're really causing more problems for your body.

[DR. RITAMARIE]

Right, because they're just restricting versus enjoying. I don't restrict. Like I said, I still eat pizza and breads that are made with nuts and seeds and vegetables. They're loaded with nutrition, but they have the taste and the mouth feel. I can make a sandwich, but I'm doing it with whole foods, plant-based ingredients that are good for me and good for the planet.

[CHRIS]

Have I missed anything else you want to share?

[DR. RITAMARIE]

Oh we can talk for days on this topic.

[CHRIS]

There's so many things we can talk about.

[DR. RITAMARIE]

There's so many things, but I would say if you're working with people with mental health, do not overlook the impact of blood sugar. It makes a huge difference, huge difference.

[CHRIS]

What's the best way for listeners to find you and learn more about you?

[DR. RITAMARIE]

Well, you can go to my website, drritamarie.com. I've got a really cool little book called hormone hacking breakfast menus. That's at hormonehackingbreakfastmenus.com. That's a nice little, to get an intro, it's all about getting the blood sugar balance, starting with your first meal, whether you're an intermittent faster and eat your first meal afternoon or whether you just eat at the normal eight o'clock, nine o'clock in the morning. Then Facebook, you can look me up on Facebook or Instagram and get a lot of stuff that way. I do a weekly Facebook Live, usually on Wednesday afternoons. Then my podcast, which will be coming out in February about mental healthcare.

[CHRIS]

Very good. Well, we look forward to hearing that when it comes out too. We'll be putting all in the show notes as well for our listeners to access. Thank you so much, Dr. Ritamarie for coming on the Holistic Counseling Podcast.

[DR. RITAMARIE]

Thank you so much. I'm so glad to be here. Happy to talk to you.

[CHRIS]

And I want to thank my listeners for tuning into today's episode. Have you joined my Facebook group, the Holistic Counseling and Self-care group? You'll gain support, connection and more resources on adding holistic practices personally and professionally. Remember to tap the plus button to subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode. This is Chris McDonald sending each one of you much light and love. Until next time, take care.

If you're loving the show, will you rate review and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform? We just started this and that helps other people find this show. Also, if you're feeling uncertain about your modalities and you want to build your confidence to be your unique self, why don't you to join my free email course, Becoming a Holistic Counselor over at holisticcounselingpodcast.com.

In my Becoming a Holistic Counselor course, you'll get tips for adding integrative care into your practice, what training you need and don't, and the know-how to attract your ideal holistic clients. If this sounds like the direction you are headed, sign up at holisticcounselingpodcast.com.

This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regards to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or any other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.

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