Confessions of a Freebird - Midlife, Divorce, Heal, and Date Differently with Somatic Experiencing, Empty Nest, Well-Being, Happiness

Is Your Diet Making You Sick? And How to Turn It Around with Functional Nutritionist Risa Groux

Laurie James - Podcaster, Author, Somatic Relationship Coach Season 1 Episode 165

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Are you unsure about which foods are healthy and which are not?

Maybe you’re dealing with fatigue, weight gain, or mysterious symptoms like joint pain, digestive issues, or autoimmune diseases. 

Understanding how the food you eat affects chronic inflammation, gut issues, or brain fog is crucial for managing your mood, energy levels, and overall health, regardless of your stage of life.

In this episode, I chat with functional nutritionist Risa Groux to discuss how our diet and lifestyle choices can impact our health, especially as we reach midlife. Risa shares her personal journey of dealing with fertility issues and an autoimmune disease, and how she used functional nutrition to heal her body.

You’ll discover:

  • The most common root causes of autoimmune diseases and how to tackle them. 
  • Why autoimmune diseases are becoming more prevalent.
  • What a leaky gut is and how the added toxins in food are making us sick.
  • How the 3000 chemicals and additives in our food could be part of the problem.
  • The top foods to eliminate from your diet to start feeling better today.
  • Why popular weight-loss drugs like Ozempic might not be the best long term solution.
  • How prioritizing whole, nutrient-dense foods can boost energy and reduce inflammation.

Whether you're navigating midlife changes  or simply aiming to feel healthier, this episode is filled with valuable tips on how you can kick start your journey to healing from the inside out. 

Here’s to your healthiest self,


Laurie


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DISCLAIMER: THE COMMENTARY AND OPINIONS AVAILABLE ON THIS PODCAST ARE FOR INFORMATIONAL AND ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY AND NOT FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROVIDING LEGAL, MEDICAL OR PROFESSIONAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD CONTACT A LICENSED THERAPIST IF YOU ARE EXPERIENCING SUICIDAL THOUGHTS. YOU SHOULD CONTACT AN ATTORNEY IN YOUR STATE TO OBTAIN LEGAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD CONTACT A LICENSED MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL WITH RESPECT TO ANY MEDICAL ISSUE OR PROBLEM.

Laurie James  

Welcome back, freebirds! Before I get started and I introduce my guest today, I wanted to remind you about my upcoming somatic healing class, the next one will be Wednesday, October 9th at 4:00 p.m., the information will be in the show notes and the topic this month will be “people pleasing”, the “fawn threat response”, and how we can gently move out of that state so we can feel safe to set healthy boundaries for ourselves. So it’s going to be a very powerful class and I hope you’ll join me. The link’s in the show notes. It’s $48 and I hope to see you there! 


And today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Risa Groux. She is a functional nutritionist and a certified autoimmune coach in private practice in Newport Beach, California. She has always been passionate about nutrition and good health. Risa was so concerned about purity that she made kid’s baby food from scratch. Today, she's passionate about cooking and creating healthy nutritious food. She works with a wide variety of clients from professional athletes, adults and kids, to the Biggest Loser from Season 4. Risa works with issues like diabetes, autoimmune disease, cancer, digestion, thyroid, and hormonal imbalances to name a few. And I’m so honored to have her here today. This is a rich conversation that is gonna be so valuable.


Laurie James  

Welcome to Confessions of a Freebird podcast. I'm your host Laurie James, a mother, divorcee, recovering caregiver, the author of Sandwiched A Memoir of Holding On and Letting Go. A therapy junkie, relationship coach, somatic healer and now podcaster, I'm a free spirit, and here to lift you up on this podcast, I'll share soulful confessions and empowering conversations with influential experts so you can learn to spread your wings and make the most of your second half. So pop in those earbuds, turn up the volume, and let's get inspired, because my mission is to help you create your most joyful, purpose driven life, one confession at a time. 


Laurie James  

Thank you so much for being here, Risa. I'm so excited about our conversation. Can you start with telling us more about your personal health journey and how it's influenced your career path.


Risa Groux  

Yeah, well, first of all, thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here Laurie, and like many people, have a health journey that has brought me where I am today, and I always had a lot of interest and passion around nutrition and food, because I grew up in this house where my mom was kind of always trying to lose those five or 10 pounds. My grandma always on a diet, and we're always talking about fattening foods and good foods and bad foods. So I got a lot of confusion with food, because all the bad foods that they said I thought were pretty good, so I was like, what? I don't understand why some foods are bad and what? So I had a lot of food confusion growing up. And then, of course, adopted the diet culture. So every book that came out, I would go on a diet because I was trying to lose my three to five pounds. And I did that all the time, until I was so sick of it, and I started to have a better relationship with food. And then I had some fertility issues. But right when I got married, I we conceived our first child like no problem. We looked at each other, got pregnant, that was it. And then my second one, I just could not conceive. I couldn't hold or conceive. You know, if I did, I just, I could not hold that baby. And we tried for years, and I really got the frustration. And then when I finally went to a fertility specialist, he did the labs, and basically, you know, handed over a script across the table for me. And I said, What's this for? So it's your thyroid. Your thyroid's not really working well. And I said, What is this script for? And he said, I just, you know, gonna take this every day? And I go, well, like, for how long? He goes, Oh, every day. And I'm like, no, no, for how long do I take? And said, for the rest of your life? And I was 'for the rest of my life?' I walked out of that office and I had two major questions. One was, why is my thyroid an underachiever? I don't understand that. And the second question was, why is he not worried or asking, why is my thyroid an underachiever, right? Is it that my body's not producing a hormone that it was born to produce that led me on my journey, and I started to discover that I had this gene mutation called MTHFR, which is very, very common. 90% of the population has it. I test everybody for it. It's 100% genetic, and I haven't both my kids have it. It's just genetic, and basically it means you're not methylizing Either your B 12 and or your folate. So you just need to take a B vitamin and methyl lysed form and lo and behold, one of the symptoms of MTHFR is infertility, miscarriages. So I started taking the B vitamin I had got pregnant. I had a healthy pregnancy. Everything was great. And a few months after my second delivery, I went to an integrative doctor who tested my antibodies for my thyroid, and lo and behold, now I was diagnosed with Hashimotos and autoimmune disease where my own antibodies, my defense mechanisms, were attacking my thyroid gland. And now I was like, oh, geez, what's going on here? This is, you know, out of control, and I am not going to sit here and take medication for the rest of my life. So I realized I could not find anything at this time. It's a long time ago, I could not find anything that gave root causes to autoimmune disease. And so I started going down the list, and I created it, I put it in my book, Food Frame, because I could not understand how could I have gotten this autoimmune disease, and now I know so much about it, I was able to reverse my Hashimotos, which was awesome, but and I've been able to help so many people along the way with their autoimmune disease, but, well, I now know you know what the root causes are, and this, unfortunately, the autoimmune is becoming more and more-


Laurie James  

Prevalent, in our society. And why do you think that is that autoimmune issues are so prevalent?


Risa Groux  

Well, a third of it is genetics. So we have that component, right? You're gonna get it, but you have the genetics too. I always say genetics load the gun, and your lifestyle and your environment all the trigger. So another part of it, speaking of lifestyle, is leaky gut. And leaky gut is, you know, we only have one layer of epithelial cells in our intestinal lining, so it's really fragile, right? We have seven on the our skin. So when we're having all these toxins in our system, I mean, we are overloaded with toxins in our country, we are. The FDA has approved 86,000 chemicals. 86. 


Laurie James  

Yeah, isn't that crazy? And I think what like 3000 of them you have said?


Risa Groux  

Well, over 3000 you can eat. You can actually eat them these.


Laurie James  

That's insane. 


Risa Groux  

Other countries do not like titanium dioxide, which is a preservative, which is very damaging. It's in a lot of foods, and it's banned in Europe, but it's not in our country. There's so many toxins and chemicals that are banned in other countries that our country, you know, we we're like, Oh, fine. We get paid for this. We're good. But let's, you know, it's good. It's good for you. So these are not good. 


Laurie James  

No, it's right, right? So way back when I have she's a friend and a neighbor, and I had her on on my podcast in January, and she started a program in our community called Growing Great. And she started bringing gardens into our kids school. I mean, now my kids are in their 20s, and believe I got a 30 year old, but way back when. And she didn't talk about it from a scientific standpoint, but she talked about whole and close to the source foods, and from a kid's point of view. She made it very simple. And I was a docent in the classroom where we went from the Cheerios the Apple Jacks, you know, box of cereal, to the apple juice, to the whole apple right? To just make it very simple for the kids to understand, like, there is no apple in Apple Jacks, except for in the title. 


Risa Groux  

Exactly. 


Laurie James  

So how did our society get here? I guess it's the government. Or is it because we can't produce enough food for our society in the US? Or what is it?


Risa Groux  

I think it's innovation, and we are progressively a busier country, right? We're busier people, and especially with the cell phones. I think that expedited. You know, you think you the computer and the cell phone gave you more time, but I feel like it gives me less time, right? Because accessible all the time, and I'm always working, right? You're just always on, which is a major problem for lifestyle, for your quarter stress hormone, but I think it's, well, we don't have to do it that way. We can do it better. We can do it quicker. And we can have these foods, you know, it started in the 50s with TV trays, right? TV dinners, and you would just pop it in the oven, and next thing, you know, you've got this, this dinner in an instant, right? I mean, it took about 10-15, minutes, but it went from the freezer to, you know, that was a convenience food, and here we are. I mean, I went for my walk this morning, and I was just kind of counting how many people had a plastic cup filled with, usually, coffee of some sort, ice coffee, or, you know, green juice or smoothie, whatever it was, everybody goes and stops to get a beverage at a store in a plastic cup, which has, you know, you're having plastic particles in there, and million other things that you're consuming, right? Your lunch is in plastic. Your dinners in plastic. No, I have three sister MOS, and none of them cook. None of them cook. 


Laurie James  

That always baffled me, especially when you had kids, like, I would hear moms, because I was the mom that cooked. I cooked like, five nights out of the week, and then we would go out on the weekends, like, that was my, you know, set Friday, Saturday night, and we would go out, but I cooked, I went to the farmer's market. Like I would do those things for my kids. Because back in the day, going back to what you started with, was the diet, and my mom was not diet conscious at all, and like, she didn't eat healthy, because she grew up in the Midwest, and my dad was very much of a meat and potatoes, and pretty much the only vegetable he would eat was corn, right, which, so that's what he you know, we grew up on that diet, and then my mom ended up going back to school as she was a school teacher. But my whole point of that was, I had four daughters that I was raising, and I didn't want them to have an unhealthy relationship with food. So for me, raising my kids was super important to have them be involved with cooking and making sure that they were eating, and especially once I started getting involved in this little nonprofit that started out little. Now it's very big and in many, many school districts across the country and here in Los Angeles, but like that, really, that was a pivotal moment for me of really cooking or with organic foods and preparing my own meals. And I do love the ritual of going out and getting some coffee in the morning. So I do do that, you know, on a regular basis. But, yeah, the whole plastic thing that is concerning, because they're starting to realize it's in our bloodstream now. 


Risa Groux  

Exactly. And the top that they put on your coffee, when your coffee is boiling hot, and it's the condensation from the the top of that plastic, it's BP, BPS is and these are really bad chemicals. So I don't ever, if I go out and I get a cup of tea, I don't ever put that on and so it's not just that coffee, it's the compilation of all of these plastics. And then we store our food in plastic, and we're just always eating out of plastic, right? So, and let alone what the chemicals are. And then let's talk about the bad seed oils that these restaurants are using. They're all using inflammatory oils because it's cheaper, it's more shelf stable, it has less taste to it, and so it's it's all about margin, even the best restaurants. I always ask, what kind of oil do you use? And sometimes like, oh, we use a blend. I go, Oh, what's in the blend? You know? And this much olive oil, but it's that much canola oil.


Laurie James  

So what are the bad seed oils?


Risa Groux  

So canola oil is huge, right? And any hydrogenated oils these means that they're they're heated, and they're trying to make it shelf stable. And it's great for a company to use it, because it creates a larger volume and it stabilizes food. So you can, you know, hydrogenated oils can live on the shelf for a long time, because soybean oil is a huge one. There was a healthy ish restaurant I used to go to all the time, and one time I asked, What oil do you use in the dressings? And they kind of, you know, kind of shook his head, and I said, What? What is it? He goes, It's soybean oil. I go, soybean oil. Are you serious? Because, yeah, so I was shocked. You know, this is like a very healthy but it's different. So soybean oil, really all the seed oil. So canola, vegetable oil, soybean oil. And I'll find soybean oil in supplements, which astounds me, because it's a good stabilizer. It's a fat. And some vitamins need a fat. They're fat soluble, so they need a fat, and they'll use soybean oil. So there's a big brand up there. You use a soybean oil and vegetable oil in their vitamin D, which is easy, it's it's causing more harm than it does good. 


Laurie James  

So that's really interesting. So what are the oils that we want to use? 


Risa Groux  

The good oils are coconut oil, right? That has like acid, lauric acid. It's really good for gut. It's really good for skin. It's antimicrobial. I love coconut oil. I use it for cooking, but I also have it in every part of my house. I use it for my facial moisturizer every night. I use it when I give it a shower, for my legs, and I also cook a lot with avocado oil. Both avocado oil and coconut oil have a high smoke point, so you can them at high heat, um, olive oil, I absolutely love it's amazing omega rich oil, and it's amazing, amazing in every way, but it doesn't have a high smoke point. So I use that for all my salad dressings. If I do low heat, I'll use olive oil, but those are the three main oils that I use. I'll use a little bit of sesame oil, toasted sesame oil, right from time to time, but only when I'm doing like Asian kind of dishes.


Laurie James  

And what about sunflower oil?


Risa Groux  

And sunflower oil is also highly processed, sunflower and safflower flour oil are highly processed. Now you'll see on the label high oleic, or you'll see cold pressed that has been because you don't want the heat. So cold pressed is always better, and some of these are just unavoidable. So sunflower and safflower are better. Grape seed oil can be better too, if it's cold pressed, but really stay away from the soybean oil, the canola oil, the vegetable oil, those are really bottom of the barrel oils. 


Laurie James  

Yeah, thank you for sharing that. That's valuable information. So you are a functional nutritionist, and probably should have started with this after you shared your story, but we're going to jump into- Can you explain exactly what that means for our listeners? 


Risa Groux  

Sure. So basically, it means that I've been trained in functional medicine, and functional medicine was created several decades ago by MDs. Were really sick and tired of the pill for an ill paradigm. They didn't feel that they were helping their patients. So it was created several decades ago, and it's based on four pillars, all of which I work with in my office. We look at prevention right in allopathic conventional medicine. Unfortunately, they don't treat you until you're in full blown disease. I'm sure lots of go to the doctor. They go, I don't feel right. Oh, you're fine. They do your labs. They're fine. What about all the spread stuff? You're fine. So you're like, Okay, think I'm fine. But so we do prevention. The second thing we look at is root causes. So why is it that I'm having an autoimmune disease? Why is it that I have headaches? Why is it that I have fatigue or skin breakouts, or whenever there's a root cause, it's not because you were born with a deficiency in medication, right? Does that make sense? 


Laurie James  

Can we stop there for a second, because I want to get to the third and the fourth, but, and that's the difference, I think, between Western medicine or, you know, typical MDs is they treat the symptoms, they don't go to the root cause, typically, like 90% of the time, and that was always frustrating for me, because I would always then get the diagnosis, and then I would go to my at the time, she's an acupuncturist and Doctor of Oriental Medicine. I would go to her and get some Chinese treatments, and like, for myself, for my kids, and my ex husband would, like, just roll his eyes. And hated it. But it's just like, Wait a minute. We need to get to the root cause. So anyways, real quick. One is 


Risa Groux  

Prevention. We don't want to get too into disease state. We look at our reference. Ranges are a little bit more narrow, because I can go on and on about this, but the blood labs are really antiquated. Love to take on this industry because it's crazy, and they all assess their lab ranges quarterly, so it all depends on who's coming into that lab. Unfortunately, we are a sick and obese nation, so that is what's now considered normal. And so they move the ranges to normal. It's not optimal, it's not healthy, it's just normal. And if you don't feel well, and the doctor tells you, if you're normal and you're like, I don't think so, trust your instincts, right? So we look for prevention, we look for root causes. And to your point, I can't speak pejoratively of doctors, because it's what their training is in medical schools. They're taught basically all about chemistry of the medications to symptoms and the body. So they only tool they really have in their toolbox is medication. They don't even really go deep on blood work. I work with a lot of doctors as patients, and trust me, I ask them all the time, you want me to go through the blood work, or do you want to look at it and ask me questions? And most of them do not know, because they just haven't been trained in how to read blood labs, and blood labs are really predicated on the insurance companies, because what they'll approve is usually they order because they don't want their whole front office spending hours and hours on the phone and chasing money. It's just a broken system that we have. That's why I order my own labs, and I go direct, even if I went through my insurance company, which I don't do anymore. But the last time I did it, my copay was more expensive than when I buy my own labs in my office direct, because there's so many hands in the ball kids, right? So making money off that map when I just go direct, that's what I do for my for everybody I work with too. I just go direct, it's cheaper, and I get all the labs I need. I get all nine markers of the thyroid, not just one. I get all four markers of the blood sugar, not just one, you know. I get all a full, comprehensive panel, and I order inflammatory markers right, which, at the end of the day, inflammation is driver disease. And we never, ever see that. I don't ever really see it. It's very, very rare if I see it on a doctor's panel, because insurance companies don't want to pay for that. So how do you get to the root cause if you don't even know, but anyway, so what happens when you go into a doctor's office is, you know, 9.9 times out of 10 they're just going to give you a medication. Well, you might have plunged the hole at the front of the boat, but now two more holes are popping up at the back of the boat.


Laurie James  

Because there's side effects, and you still haven't gotten to the root cause 


Risa Groux  

Exactly. And then you're going to run to the back of the boat plug those two, and then three more popped up at the front. So people know what I'm talking about, because next thing you know, they're like, I You want me to take eight medications. And then people always come into my office and I'm like, You must feel amazing, right? Because if you're on eight medications, you know, you gotta be the picture of health. I'm like, oh, no, I feel horrible because medication is not the answer all the time. Now, there is a place for medication, but it's usually not because you weren't born with a deficiency in medication, right? There's usually a reason why your cholesterol goes up. There's four major reasons why that happens, and it's not because you were born with a deficiency instead. So again, we look at that. The third pillar that we look at is the we consider the whole body one interconnected unit, so everything has to do with each other. So yeah, something love that, right? Your blood sugars might have something to do with your thyroid, so on and so forth. All these things are interconnected. And the fourth thing is data. So I always say I cannot play darts with the lights off. When I cannot see the target, I order a very comprehensive blood screen and a stool test with everyone I work with, because I need to know what we're looking at. Right. Every body is individual. So they have overgrowth, you may have worms, you may have parasites, you may have H Pylori, I don't know. I have to test to find out, and then we can treat that so we can get to the root cause. 


Laurie James  

I love that. And thank you for explaining that so thoroughly, because I think there's a lot of confusion, and I, and me included in terms of, you know, you hear about a nutritionist, a functional medicine person? I mean, I listen. I love Dr Mark Hyman. He's been in the functional medicine space for a long time, and it was nice to, kind of like, have an MD who supports this type of medicine, that food as a medicine. And I just, I love this quote, so I'm just going to say it that that he I saw this on the wall in a bathroom. What's odd place to have it? But? But it was in a health food store, and it says, We are fed by the food industry which pays no attention to health, and we are treated by the health industry which pays no attention to food. 


Risa Groux  

Correct? That's exactly- 


Laurie James  

Which is essentially what you were just talking about.


Risa Groux  

Yeah, it's really amazing. You know, I worked with a family on several years ago, and I treated the woman, and there was lots of issues, and she ended up losing 72 pounds, because weight loss is side effect of wellness. But we felt just focused on her wellness. We got rid of the chronic cough and all these other issues, and then she brought me her two daughters, who ended up having a lot of fatigue, just tremendous, debilitating fatigue. And it turned out it wasn't their antidepressants that was, you know, the problem. It was really the Epstein Barr Virus that had become activated. So one day, I get a call from the mom, and she's like, you're never going to believe this, but my husband is a surgeon, wants to come see you. I said, Bring it. Enough demeanor. So I for like, my 12 session package, we do this whole thing. He completely changed his diet. Everything changed with him. His inflammation numbers were kind of through the roof. Those all came down. It was really amazing to watch him heal. But the very last visit I had with him, he said, I gotta tell you something. I said, sure, what's up? He said, I was diagnosed with a hearing loss about a year and a half ago, and I started wearing hearing aids. He was in his 50s, and he said, I didn't tell you that, but I just wanted you to know that last week I was in the hospital, you know, working, and he went to the audiologist, and then the doctor said to him, I don't know what you've done, but you do not need a hearing aid. So I sat back and I I had a feeling I knew what it was, but I said, What do you think it is? And he said, it's got to be this systemic inflammation, which is exactly, yeah. So it's amazing. What happened is, when you watch the body heal from food, right? Change his diet supplements to help decrease the systemic inflammation, increase the good gut health, we looked at the bacterias, and next thing you know, he's like, thriving. 


Laurie James  

Yeah, no, I love that. And I mean, I have some tinnitus that I've had for a year and a half, well, probably longer than that, several years that I've been working on and I haven't been able to so maybe I'll connect with you after this. But a question for you is, I know there's a lot of talk about the microbiome, you know, the gut health, and I just did a podcast with somebody on alcohol and how it affects us. How does alcohol affect our health from a functional medicine standpoint? 


Risa Groux  

Yeah, so alcohol is what I call a food for sport, right? I separate food for survival and food for sport, and most people come into my office eating more food for sport than they do eating food for survival, but once so that's a food for sport, we can live a whole life without it, and we'd be perfectly fine, right? That's how you the sport. But we are human, and we want some food for sport, for sure, I definitely don't want anybody to live a life without any of it, but we have to sort of switch the the percentages and make sure it's an occasional, right? So alcohol is sugar at the end of the day, it's tough on the liver. So wine is my least favorite because it's highly sprayed crops. So you're going to get tons of pesticides and herbicides on that wine, unless it's


Laurie James  

even if it's organic,


Risa Groux  

it's organic, it's way better. And you know, a lot depends on the soil, how enriched the soil is, but it's not a source of nutrition. But with wine-


Laurie James  

You mean, I'm not getting my fruit?


Risa Groux  

That's right, you're not getting 


Laurie James  

drinking wine 


Risa Groux  

Black or wine is not a fruit. And people love wine because of the resveratrol. And there's so many studies saying, Oh, it's great for your health. So they're a little bit of resveratrol is great. But you don't have to really drink a bottle of wine a day to get enough resveratrol. I just take resveratrol, a little capsule for anti inflammatory and health aging benefits. But anyway, so wine really spikes blood sugar levels, so I'm not really a big fan of wine, and I find that a lot of people have a really hard time processing wine.


Laurie James  

I have to say I have had a much harder time, especially because I'm pushing 60. I mean, 29 and over the last two years, I've had a really hard time with wine, and I have really tailored back how much alcohol I drink. I mean, not that I drank a lot anyways, but it was like, oh, you know, Friday, Saturday nights, have maybe a couple glasses of wine if you go to a party or whatever. But I have really, really struggled with that.


Risa Groux  

Yeah, you're not alone. And I just think it's hard to digest it. It's just a lot of sugar in the system. Now there are companies, there's three companies that I know of that are making cleaner wines that are organic, without sulfites and sulfates. So those are better for those people who really love their wine, and European wines tend to be better as well. And I'm a big fan of tequila. That's my drink of choice. It's less processed. It's real, you know, it's from Cactus, and it's less processed. It doesn't have the blood sugar impact that wine does gin, vodka too, you know, depending on what kind it is. But those are usually my go to and again, it's in my food for sport category, so it's going to be in moderation.


Laurie James  

Yeah, right, right. I think that, in general, is a good approach. If you feel like you need to have alcohol every single night, you may want to reevaluate your relationship with that. So we've talked a lot about how diet plays a role in autoimmune but can it really reverse an autoimmune disease? In your opinion?


Risa Groux  

Yeah. I mean, not all, but, I mean, I did it with myself, but it just food. There were, you know, I went down that checklist, and I had every one of them. So I went through every single one of those things and addressed them, and so I was able to reverse it. But some people, I can just take out gluten in their diet, and they'll reverse their antibodies, not it's always, usually not that easy, but it does happen. I'm working with somebody right now who just crossed the line on antibodies. I mean, that's the lowest level you can but it's a good thing we tested right? I also am working with somebody right now who hasn't been tested for years and years and years and years, and her levels are through the roof, so it's going to take much more time. But for this person who just crossed that line, I say, let's just do this with food, and I gave her a little thyroid support, we should be able to reverse that, right? And so it depends, but yes, gluten is like the worst thing you can do for autoimmune because it just pokes holes in that intestinal lining, so it creates more tight junctions, more leaky gut, and then you become less tolerant of food and having more inflammation and all that stuff. And when you-


Laurie James  

Really so the gluten adds to the leaky gut. 


Risa Groux  

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, it's a really good it's like a shovel to just make those tight junctions, those holes in the intestinal lining a little bit bigger. 


Laurie James  

Yeah, I know alcohol does too, that- 


Risa Groux  

Sugar, dairy and alcohol, really, I mean, gluten, you know, and processed chemicals, stress, those are the things that can really create a bad, leaky gut. And people have, there's a lot of leaky guts out there. So it's, yeah, that I really, I focus on all the-


Laurie James  

My daughter had it in college. Yeah, lovely, I mean, and we did, you know, the endoscopy, we did all these things. We did the FODMAP diet, we did all these different procedures, and they still couldn't find anything. And again, I took her to my gal who she's not a functional medicine, but like, you know, she's like before functional medicine, before I really knew about functional medicine. And we put her on a supplement, like a it was a meal replacement, right? And very clean meal replacement, and she had to take that, like once or twice a day. And over time, it did help. And now she's a lot better. But yeah, it's, you know, and and back then, and this. Probably eight, nine years ago, I said something to her gastroenterologist about leaky gut, and she kind of looked at me like, what's that? 


Risa Groux  

Yeah, it's just a pop culture word, right?


Laurie James  

Yeah. 


Risa Groux  

So it's unfortunate, and a lot of doctors are really starting to grasp this concept, but we just need everybody on board, because it's real, and young people are getting it. It's, it's really tough. I'll, I'll get really tough cases of major I'm working with, with a college student right now who can't eat anything, and major headaches and fatigue and very, very thin, and so her numbers for leaky gut were just through the roof, you know. So it takes time, but gut reboot, which is a something. I had it this morning, and I shake. I have it pretty much every day. I have a shake. It's, you know, l glutamine, which is an amino acid that's really, really helpful for gut repair. So I'm sure that's what you get. It has marshmallow rune, zinc, carnosine, slippery elm, aloe, all those things are very healing. Collagen. That's why I'm a big fan of collagen. I have collagen every day that's in my collagen detox is collagen because that has the same amino acids that are really, really helpful for leaky gut, bone broth, too, if it's right, you know, if it's gelatinous at room temperature, it has those amino acids that are going to help heal that gut.


Laurie James  

Yeah. Wow. So much good information here, and so little time. So switching gears a little bit. I want your opinion on ozempic and similar types of drugs that are out there. Because, I mean, I've talked to people, friends, one client, who has gone on it, or and, or thinking about going on and I know people that have either gone on it or thinking about going on it, because for some people, it has helped them. And you know, then Oprah did this whole big segment on how it's helped her. But I'm interested in your take from a functional medicine standpoint.


Risa Groux  

Yeah. So, you know, basically it's, it's the ozempic will go the mangiorno. All of these things are basically what's called a GLP one. And what that means is it up regulates your satiation hormone called leptin, and it down regulates your hunger hormone called ghrelin. And this is something that your brain and your gut both make, and it sort it does it, you know, artificially, right? We have a medication that does it, and so the effect is not a lot of hunger, and we do stabilize blood sugars. It's got a lot of tremendous results to it, for sure, but there's a lot of issues with it as well. I've seen joint pain, I've seen a lot of thyroid dysregulation, and I've also see in people getting off of it are getting their weight right back. So, you know, of course, the manufacturer- 


Laurie James  

Yeah, so it's one of those drugs that you have to basically take and stay on it for the rest of your life. 


Risa Groux  

Right. Manufacturers love this, right? I mean, what's better than you let your you have to take my drugs to the rest of your life? This is awesome. This is not what we should be doing. Now, as I talked about the epithelial cells and that that are the intestinal lining. Above that, we have some villi there that protect us, and above that is what we call a mucosal lining. And inner mucosal lining, it's almost like its own ecosystem. If it's a healthy mucosal lining, you're going to repopulate your good guys, and guess what? Your glps are populated in your mucosal lining. So if you fix your gut, then you'll notice, I mean, I notice this all the time with people I work with, they're like, I'm really not that hungry anymore. Well, there's two reasons for that. One is that when you give the body the food that it needs, right, when you give your car gas instead of shampoo, it's like, okay, I got enough. I'm good to go. I'm ready to go run right. And when you give your body fake food, right, empty calories, not nutrient dense foods like gasoline, like shampoo and your gas tank, then it's going to go, Okay, that was great, but where are my nutrients? I'm still hungry or searching for nutrients. And when you're eating a whole food, nutrient dense diet, every day, you're going to repopulate your own mucosa lining, and you're you'll have your Gremlin will come down and your leptin will go up, right? You're hungry and satiation hormones automatically. But we are in Hill for now. I had somebody a few months ago who said to me, Well, now I can eat whatever I want. I'm at my weight goal weight. I can eat burgers and fries and I'm like, that's exactly what we don't want, right? Because you may be thin and you may have half the burger instead of the whole burger, but what are your labs look like? How's your information? 


Laurie James  

It's a lifestyle change, right? And that's, I think, the difference, and I'm sure they can read more about it in your book, but, I mean, I've chosen, and I'm probably not to the extent that you are, but it's a lifestyle change, and it kind of goes back to, you know, it's like, that's why I chose to cook the way I did for my kids. Now, I was lucky. I wasn't working. I was a stay at home mom, so I had a little bit more time. But as we're coming towards the end here, there's a lot of people, as we've talked about, you know, we want instant gratification. We want instant results. We want our food to be done. We don't want to spend the time cooking, if you could give our listeners who are in midlife, some of them, you know, maybe taking care of their parents still, or, you know, still raising their kids, or whatever it is, and working what are like, maybe three simple steps that somebody could take that's not overwhelming for them to improve their health. 


Risa Groux  

So number one, would absolutely be cut out the toxins. Just decrease your toxic load, right? The average American female comes in contact with over 200 chemicals just before she's left the bathroom each morning, you think you've nail polish, your makeup, your hairspray, your whatever you're putting in your hair, on your face and your body, right? Tanning stuff, I don't know, whatever it is, right? So all of that, then you're cleaning supplies, right? And then Febreze is, like, my least favorite. I'm my hair curlers. Like, I'm like, do you mind if I unplug this while I'm here? And he's like, yeah, what's the problem is, I tell him, and he's like, I got rid of them everywhere. So I'm like, great. So we have scented candles. That's just a whore. It's a very easy way to get toxins in the system, and detoxing is really important. And I'm happy to offer your listeners 10% off my detox, my two week detox, which is on a starvation diet, you eat, but your detox your liver. So it's really important to to decrease your toxic load. That's number one. Number two would be sugar. Sugar is the devil. It does. We don't glean any nutrition from sugar. So I highly recommend that people cut out that sugar and eat real food, right, fat-


Laurie James  

And if you're using a sauce, because sugar's in everything, sugar's in ketchup, sugar's in some mustards. I mean, condiments, dressings. Every I make my own dressings, yeah? 


Risa Groux  

Everything, I make my own dressings too. 


Laurie James  

And it's easy, just like a little lemon juice and olive oil or red wine vinegar and olive oil, you know.


Risa Groux  

Yeah, something, it's easy. Easy, some garlic or shallots. And, you know, sometimes I'll put raspberries in in the summer. You know, it's easy. And that would be my third suggestion is cook, get into the kitchen, go to the farm or go to the market and touch your produce and see what you're eating, right? And shop, we all know this, at the perimeter of the store, and eat real food. Eat foods that don't have a nutritional panel, things that are crawling from the ground and spreading from the earth. Those are the things that we should be eating, protein, fat and fiber.


Laurie James  

Protein, fat and fiber. Yeah, I love that. So how can people find you and find your book Food Frame?


Risa Groux  

Yeah. So everything can be found my course on thyroid, Achieving Optimal Thyroid health, which I poured everything I know, into thyroid, into that course. So anybody who has hypo, hyper thyroidectomy, graves or hashes, it's perfect for you. I talk about what foods to eat, what not to eat, what supplements to take, what supplements not to take, how to read your blood work, what markers you need to look at, what are optimal ranges versus normal ranges or suggested range. And then my book Food Frame, which is my philosophy on eating, I believe that everybody should be eating according to their current health status. And it goes through that, along with my detox. And then my detox, and all my other products are on my website at Risa grew nutrition. So it's R, i, s, a, Groux G, R, o, u, x, nutrition.com, and my social media all the same name Reese grew nutrition. I love what I do, and I love watching people heal. I'm still working people all over the country via zoom, so I'm help,



And all of your links will be in the show notes. And just as an end, as a somatic experiencing practitioner, I want to say, when we also heal this part of us, it also helps to calm our nervous system. 


Risa Groux  

For sure.


Laurie James  

Because our bodies aren't in we're not fighting against a disease. We're not fighting against these autoimmune issues, and so that from a somatic place is so helpful as well. So Risa, thank you so much for your time today. I so appreciate you being here with us, and I look forward to staying connected with you.


Risa Groux  

Yeah, thank you for having me.


Laurie James  

Thank you for listening to this episode of Confessions of a Freebird. I'm grateful to be in your ears and hearts. If you're interested in becoming a free bird, I'd love to support you. Please check out my website at Laurieejames.com to learn how we can work together, or to sign up for my newsletter so you can receive tips on how to date and relationship differently and ultimately find more freedom and joy in your life. If you found this podcast helpful, please follow or subscribe, rate and review and share it with friends so they can find more freedom in their second or third act also. Until next time.