Britt is a Registered Holistic Nutritionist and Bachelor of Science degree holder located in Northern Ontario. She is rooted in science and uses evidence-based approaches to help her clients get to the root of their digestive issues, beat burnout, eat to ease anxiety and build long term healthy habits without restrictions. She loves helping her clients find joy in the kitchen, enjoy a loving relationship with food and finally feel like they can eat some of their favourite foods after years and years of restriction.
Having been through all the digestive issues, anxiety and burnout herself, Britt is incredibly passionate about all things gut health related and the connection that it has with the mind.
Britt has worked with many 1:1 clients and has been able to help them uncover the missing pieces of their health picture, creating health plans that feel realistic, and aligned with her clients values and lifestyle.
Britt also has a podcast, “The Balance with Britt Podcast” with new episodes weekly.
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Listen to my episode on Britt’s podcast HERE (look for Postpartum Depression & Anxiety)
Related WNM podcast episode: #5 The Secret to Feeling Energized During Pregnancy and Postpartum
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Hey mama, welcome back to another episode of the well -nourished mamma podcast I am very excited for you to listen to today's conversation because I interviewed my friend Brit She is a holistic nutritionist from Canada.
We actually met on Instagram and We are talking all about burnout. You're gonna learn about cortisol and our stress response and how you can understand And the difference between I'm just a little bit stressed or wow, I've been stressed for a long time.
I need to kind of dial it back or the phase of burnout when just like everything is flatlined and you just need a hard factory reset. She works on this a lot with her clients and she uses a holistic approach to tackle it.
So we talk mostly about nutrition and things that we can do to fuel our bodies both as preventative measure and as a treatment measure, but then also some lifestyle things as well that can help us work through stages of burnout.
And something really, really important that we talk about in the episode that I want to reiterate right now is this idea that we often think that the goal is to get rid of stress in our life. Usually when we talked to people, they're like, oh, well, you just need to stop being stressed.
You need get of your stress. That's not possible and that's not really how it's supposed to be. There actually are good things in our life that can cause good stress, right? Getting married is a stressful thing, but it is good because there's a good thing coming from it, or having a baby.
It's stressful but yet we're excited and we are looking forward to it. And so there are things that cause a lot of stress and stress is always going to be there. So it's not about trying to avoid it or get rid of it, but it is about managing it and learning how to deal with it and then also recognize the signs of burnout before you get to that point.
But thankfully, Brit is an expert in all of it. And so she's going to help us understand not only how to recognize before we get there, but then what to do if we're already at the burn out phase and how we can recover from that and kind of reset and things that we do in our daily life to just feel good even though we are busy and we have lots going on.
So I think today's conversation is to be really really relevant for you especially as we go into the spring when our energy is starting to come back and our kids are having more activities and more friends to hang out with and maybe we're planning for summer vacations and being on the go all the time.
So I really hope you find some little gems in today's conversation that just empower you for the next couple months or hopefully indefinitely of how you're going to intentionally take care of yourself so that you don't have to worry about getting to this burnout phase and then going through this vicious cycle over and over again.
So with all of that, let's jump into today's interview with my friend Britt all about burnout and how to handle it holistically.
Britt is a registered holistic nutritionist and bachelor of science jury holder located in Northern Ontario. She is rooted in science and uses evidence -based approaches to help her clients get to the root of their digestive issues, beat burnout, eat to ease anxiety, and build long -term healthy habits without restrictions.
She loves helping her clients find joy in the kitchen, enjoy a loving relationship with food, and finally feel like they can eat some of their favorite foods after years and years of restriction. Having been through all the digestive issues, anxiety, and burnout herself, Britt is incredibly passionate about all things gut health related and the connection that it has with the mind.
Britt has worked with many one -on -one clients and has been able to help them uncover the missing pieces of the health picture, creating health plans that feel realistic and aligned with their values and lifestyle.
Brit also has a podcast at the Balanced with Brit podcast with new episodes weekly. Hey Brit, thanks so much for joining us today. We're excited to have you here. Hi, I'm so excited. To be here for all of the mamas listening.
I was actually on Brit's podcast first about a month ago so I now returning the favor and we are very excited, to have YOU here and were talking about really interesting topic today and when you mentioned it to me in our email thread I was like oh my gosh that's perfect my mama's really need to hear that so today we're gonna be talking about burnout being overly stressed being stuck in fight -or -flight whatever you want to call it and how we can tackle that from a holistic nutritional perspective this is something that Brit specializes in and helps women with regularly so I'm really excited to talk to you about this but before we jump into that can you just tell us a little bit about yourself, your career and how you got to where you are.
Absolutely. I am so excited to chat about this topic. And a large part of it is because it Is involved in my own health journey as well. You know, stress is kind of an inevitable part Of life. And I think we all often, I don't know me and my friends anyways, have gone through this phase of life where like the hustle, culture is real.
And, you know, I was working multiple jobs to get to university and then pay off university, moving from one city to another. All of a sudden, in my like, early 20s, and you are graduating university.
You're like the stress of what do I do with the rest of my life. I found in that phase, that early 20s phase of life, I was highly, highly anxious. I was dealing with anxiety like crazy. I Was noticing physical changes in my body, like I was gaining weight, dealing with fatigue and digestive issues and lots of hormone issues as well, like irregular periods, PMS symptoms like crazy, it felt like maybe I had one good week of the month.
And then it was PMS period and, you know, dealing with everything in between. So, You know on paper, I felt like my diet was pretty good. I was a vegetarian. I'd been one for a long time since I as like an adolescent.
I feel like I've eaten my veggies and I worked out like, I, was active, but a lot of what I wasn't doing was kind of contributing to the burnout cycle. I working two jobs, sometimes from like 8 AM to 10 PM.
I was waking up at 6 a .m. to get my workout in, working out fasted, drinking coffee before I had breakfast. My breakfast was not a satiating one, and I often was relying on sugar or caffeine to get through the afternoons.
And then this anxiety stress cycle really was perpetuated, the gut health issues, hormone imbalance issues. And I feel like this is so many people that I talk to now. And it wasn't until I kind of took a step back from like my hustle culture life.
And I went back to school to be a holistic nutritionist so I could support myself. And was like, is my lifestyle supporting me right now? And this is me in my early twenties and I should be as resilient as possible.
And, I was anything but like I was so anxious that even like driving my car was difficult. So it really took me taking a step back and looking at my lifestyle holistically to see where the gaps were.
And I'm sure we'll talk a lot about some of these because so many of us do these without even realizing it sometimes. And yeah, I still have stressful days here and there now, but I do feel like my stress resiliency toolbox is built in a way that I can support myself in those anxious moments, in those stressful moments.
And we'll definitely talk about that toolbox as well. But that led me to where I am today in supporting clients with anxiety, burnout, high stress, inflammation, poop problems. I love talking about poop because these things are all connected.
And I think these are the things we not need to talk about. These things that we don't talk about like periods, poop, and libido, everything in between. And a lot of it is connected to our stress levels.
So I'm really happy that we're diving into this. Me too. I really want to touch on something that you said at the beginning. You talked about how you were constantly fatigued and you are gaining weight.
And there were a couple other things where you just sit there and oh, like PMS and hormonal stuff and, you know, tummy issues, whether it's like constipation, bloating, whatever it was. And I sat there and I was like, I'm sure there are so many women out there that just think that that's normal They're like oh, that is just a part of being a woman.
I am supposed to have tummy troubles I supposed PMS half the month and then bleed the other half and that was just my life and You and i are here to be like actually that not normal That signs that you're stressed that signs, stuff is going on and not only can we fix it, but we can prevent it most of the time so I am so excited that we're gonna talk about this today because I want moms to know that how you used to feel is not normal and that's not how they have to live their life so moms are probably stressed most of time we've got kids you know we got busy schedules all these things how do we how do we handle that stress?
Is stress always a bad thing? What's going on in our body when we're stressed? Can you just like give us a lowdown on what stresses to us physiologically? Absolutely. And I definitely want to start by saying the goal is not not to have stress.
It's not realistic. I got stressed. I'm sure you get stressed, especially as mom, this is a stressful period of life. You're, you're losing sleep. you're you know dealing with changes to your lifestyle and supporting yourself is going to look different from non -moms and that's okay but there's there're still things you can do so let's talk a little bit about like what that stress response look like looks like so as we said you know stress played a huge role in my own digestive and mental health journey and when it comes to our stress response, you're right, it's not always a bad thing.
We need stress to ideally protect us. It's motivating, and you know if we didn't have deadlines with work we might never get anything done. Those deadlines can also be stressful. But the way physiologically in the body it works is we have our adrenal glands.
So our adrenal glands are two small triangular -shaped glands that sit just above the kidneys. They produce hormones that help regulate metabolism, blood pressure, response to stress, our immune system, and tons of other essential functions.
So one of those hormones produced by the adrenals glands is called cortisol. If you are listening to this podcast, you may have heard of cortisol on TikTok or wherever it is, the Adrenal Cocktail, all these things, it's a little trendy right now.
I think what's important to remember is cortisol is important. We need it for hunger cravings, digestion, blood pressure, sleep -wake patterns, physical activity, and our ability to cope with stress.
So cortisol has this normal pattern throughout the day. It spikes in the morning around 6 a .m. and then slowly tapers off throughout the day to be at its lowest in the evening. So the way it works is cortisol is spiky in the morning so that we are feeling rested or recharged.
We feel like we're awake and energized and ready to take on the date. I say that this is like our bright -eyed and bushy -tailed wake -up call. And then throughout the days it declines so the melatonin can increase in the evenings and that's what helps us feel we were going to bed feeling tired and we're ready for bed.
Now we can talk about the different phases of burnout but basically issues arise when either cortisol gets stuck on because we are stressed chronically all the time and were not managing that stress.
That's when you're feeling like you are racing from one task to the next. In the beginning of that phase you might feel like your superwoman, you go go I can get all the things done and then when that's locked on for too long you can burn out phase where cortisol's always low because we really depleted and exhausted the adrenals and then what you're left with is you know waking up feeling like you didn't sleep at all, salty cravings, waking -up consistently between two and four in the morning that's when you really in that burnout phase.
So there's definitely a long period of time or not always long but a period of but before you reach that burnt out phase that you can assess and address and make some changes before you get to burnout.
But yeah, overall, that's kind of like the normal pattern of what cortisol looks like and kind what things look like when things are getting locked on and eventually, you know, so depleted that we're just like, we are flat lined and feeling like we were dragging our feet.
I love that you pointed out that cortisol in and of itself is not bad. I feel like that context we always hear it in is that it's bad, which is not true. Just like you said, we need it to wake up in the morning.
We need that for hunger and fullness cues. There's so many things that is does and it supposed to be present in our body at certain levels and at a certain times of the day. So our conversation today is focusing on the times when there's too much or because we've had too much for so long, now there is nothing left.
So I just want to make sure that's clarified for our listeners that cortisol is good, we need it. We just need at the right times in the right amount. And so I want you to tell us now, what are the, you mentioned this, what of the phases of burnout?
How do we start to recognize that we are creeping up towards burn out where our cortisol is not regulated anymore and it's taking a toll on our body? Absolutely. So you'll see like, I've seen different amounts of phases of burnout in different research from three to 12 phases.
I have it kind of loosely packed into three different phases and you can definitely like stretch these out but I start first with like our like alarm phase or this is almost like a superwoman phase where adrenaline and cortisol are high we're in that fight -or -flight response but we are also feeling like we got this this like almost like the honeymoon phase.
We're like, I'm go, go go. I can do this. This is like that hustle culture mentality a little bit. Um, you feel like you can't do it all. And this is where we start. Uh, we do that for too long. We enter our bit of like a resistance phase where your body's like Ooh, we're kind of locked on cortisol is high.
Adrenaline is low. and we're kind of locked on in that high cortisol state where we might notice some of those symptoms of feeling wired yet tired, anxious, dealing with insomnia or irritable, feeling snappy, might have some increased PMS symptoms.
We're waking between two and four a .m., we have energy crashes. So those are all things that can happen and when we're kind of locked on. And there are a number of like metabolic consequences of those chronically elevated cortisol levels.
One, this is one I experienced is weight gain. Weight gain specifically around the abdomen is a protective mechanism for your body. So this has connected to hormone imbalances, blood sugar instability and inflammation, which can result in that weight game.
And it's your trying to protect itself. Yeah, speaking to the blood sugar piece of the puzzle, being stuck in this fight or flight phase for a long time can really put us on a bit of a blood -sugar roller coaster because in that fight -or -flight response, our body is liberating glucose from our cells and driving it towards skeletal muscles of brain.
So we can fight, or flee from something that we aren't doing with modern stressors. So what you're left with is this bit of like, like I said, like a bit of a blood sugar roller coaster. You're craving sweets.
You are feeling like you just need quick energy. And then, so that's kind of like that middle range. That's when we know like we really should start making some changes. And we start to notice some of those symptoms, like the ones I mentioned, maybe difficulty concentrating.
You might notice digestive changes, constipation, or diarrhea, depending on the person, because these high stress states really do have an impact on digestion and gut health. We talked on, the last time you were on my podcast about the mind -gut connection, and that's something that is really at play here.
The mind impacts the gut, but the gut also impacts mind. When we're in that high -stress state, not only is our microbiome impacted, but also physically how quickly food moves through the gastrointestinal tract, it can either slow to a halt resulting in constipation, depending on the person, or you evacuate your bowels because you're so stressed.
And I've seen it on both ends, I have experienced it both sides. So digestion is really impacted by stress. and I would say a very common overlooked component of things like IBS is stress and anxiety, and we always want to blame the food.
I do a lot of digestive work as well, so I do come back to a little of the poop connection, but we do often want to believe that stress plays a really big role. So that phase two, that resistance phase, that's when we're starting to notice those symptoms that I mentioned.
And then our final phase is the exhaustion or burnout phase. This is when we're low on cortisol. We are dealing with some underactive or exhausted adrenals. This when you feel like you're never getting enough sleep no matter how much you get.
Because again, we need that spike in cortisol in the morning to wake up feeling bright -eyed and bushy -tailed. You might be dealing hormone imbalances is because cortisol is just one hormone produced by the adrenals and it can interfere with other hormone pathways.
And this is when you really just feel like you're dragging your feet all day. You're relying on that coffee for energy. And I really do wanna emphasize that this might sound really similar for a lot of new moms out there.
And it's not simply like you didn't get enough sleep last night, okay? This is happening to you and you literally slept for two hours. then like, yeah, that's why. But if you're getting eight hours of sleep and you feel like you slept, not at all, we might be dealing with that burnout phase.
That's a really good point. And I like that you pointed out the whole digestive component because something that we're not taught about fight or flight is that when our body goes into that state, our bodies stops prioritizing, digesting, and absorbing nutrients.
And so whatever food you are eating is either going right through you, like you said, or during that part, you're not getting all the vitamins, you not get all of the minerals, they're being absorbed, they are not being utilized, and so now it's compounding into nutritional deficiencies where, sure, you might be eating your fruits and vegetables, but if you so stressed all time, your body can't actually take the vitamin and minerals out of fruits or vegetables to use, and now you're lacking in the vitamins and minerals that you need to feel good.
And so now it's just this negative feedback loop of it just perpetuates over and over. So I like that, you pointed out that connection and how it really isn't just a mind thing, it starts to affect the entire body.
And it is crazy how normalized it has become. We're like, nope, you just need go, go go. Just push through. Just pushed through, You're in a hard phase right now, just push through the hard face and then it'll be fine.
And you're like, okay, but if I push through hard -face, what am I left with at the end? And I'm really happy you brought up the nutrient component too, because what is a really vicious cycle of the stress cycle is you are absolutely right.
Nutrient absorption is impacted, digestion is impact. Your stomach acid production is an impact it. So you might even notice like acid reflux or burping or whatever it might be, and not only that, but periods of stress on the body require added nutrients.
There are nutrients that we go through more of when we're going through periods of stress. I'm sure we'll cover this, but one that I would love to touch on now is magnesium. Like magnesium is something that like I love, I am obsessed with magnesium, not Not only is it depleted during periods of stress, it's depleted by excess caffeine consumption, alcohol consumption and all of these things, in addition to the fact that it is less present in our foods than it once was.
So that's one example, but there's a number of nutrients in particular that are commonly depleted when we're in these high stress states. I don't know if you want me to cover the others now or ... Yeah.
Can we talk about that now? what are some other ones that come to mind? Another one would be vitamin C. It's a really big one. Vitamin C is our anti -stress nutrient. Our adrenals need vitamin c and we might even start getting some vitamin -c depletions in that superwoman honeymoon phase right at the beginning.
So I often encourage my clients to really focus on colorful fruits and veggies during stressful phases to ensure that they're getting some vitamin C intake. Another one is our B vitamins. B Vitamins are commonly depleted during this phase as well.
And we can get those from like whole cranes, leg gooms. And B -Vitamins are important because they are crucial for glucose metabolism. They're important for our nervous system, for energy. Yeah. So, B -guidements, I feel like, are just so, like under the radar.
They are so important. So that's really fascinating that those are some of the ones that get depleted during stress because those were crucial. And something else that is interesting, if we talk about this like almost negative feedback loop, sometimes stress, decreased stress resiliency can be a symptom of a nutrient deficiency.
For example, iron. Iron deficiency symptoms are anxiety. So, another, magnesium is another one where deficiency can often manifest as anxiety. B vitamins as well. Others would be, I mean, a simple nutrient that is like a broad range, but fiber in general is going to be great because it's great for blood sugar stability to get you off of the blood -trigger roller coaster.
And I think we'll talk about this as, well, that, you know, stressors aren't always emotional being on that blood sugar rollercoaster is a stressor on the body so fiber in general is gonna be great for your blood -sugar balance and also your gut health.
So those are the things that I tend to focus on most when I'm starting out with someone who's in that high stress state but also doing it in a way that is not adding more stress to this person's plate which I think is the most important thing to focused on here.
It's not spending hours in the kitchen, It's not creating complicated recipes. It is where can we get this nourishment that makes sense for us in this phase of our life. Yeah, and it's as simple as just grabbing a whole bunch of supplements off the shelf either.
No, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Okay, so before we touch on the nutrition aspect, I want to understand burnout just a little bit more. Does our body know the difference between physical, mental and emotional burnout or is it all treated the same?
Like it all results in this overdrive. Yeah that's an amazing question and I think when I'm referring to like stress because stress and burn out I think go hand in hand. Burnout is when we're chronically stressed for too long.
Okay um so I thinking I, think of it like a stress bucket um and where are we adding to our stress bucket? So there's some things that we are adding to our stress bucket that we don't have control over.
And there's some things we do. The things that don have as much control over are some of those emotional stressors like finances, our job, our home life. Things that have a little bit more control over or some those physical stressor that were putting onto our body.
And those could be the ones that are sending us over the edge. And if we are doing things like including an inflammatory diet. We're on a blood sugar roller coaster, we're having lots of sweets. We are consuming a nutrient -poor diet, we are not getting enough sleep.
We over -exercising, we don't have good, I mentioned sleep, but we have unrealistic expectations of ourselves, poor gut health. Those are all things that can be adding to your stress bucket. So if some of the things you can focus on, especially like as a mom, of course, like being a parent, that's a stressor that is going to be in the stress bucket, okay?
But things we can take out of a stressed bucket are chronic inflammation or sleep patterns sometimes, depending on the stage that your kids are at, the blood sugar dysregulation, the gut health, nutrient deficiencies, supporting hormone health.
These are all things that we kind of take some pressure off the body so that our bucket is not overflowing and we're not like heading towards that burnout phase. Yeah. And it's not about getting rid of the bucket.
It's about managing what goes in the bucket, how much goes into the bucket and how frequently we are emptying the bucket or at least trying to, right? Like I've said from the beginning here, like I am not stress -free.
I'm not a Zen person all the time. I have a type A perfectionist. I run two businesses, and it's tough. I have to really think about my stress bucket. And for me, it is a combination, and actually I think this is maybe where we'll go next, but the things we can do to support our stress buckets, for it me it a combinations of nourishment, movement, sleep hygiene, and stress management practices, like journaling, talking with friends, participating in a hobby, disconnecting from technology.
Yeah, I have days that I'm stressed, but I am not using unhealthy coping mechanisms for the stress and I always working to decrease my stress bucket so that can be resilient to stressors that come my way.
That's a great point. So let's move into that now. So if we are sitting here and we're like, oh my gosh, I think I might be burned out. think I might be or maybe like we're in that second phase where you know things are starting to get really bad but we are not quite on empty yet.
If we are sitting there and we recognize oh shoot that's me. What in your opinion is the first thing that we should do? Should it be nutritionally related, should it be sleep, or should be journaling?
Like what's the first thing you would recommend we do when we recognized that we are burning out. I think it really depends on the person and I would say if you're, this is you right now, what is one thing that you think you can do?
Um, can you, like, are you going all day without eating? That's stressful on a body. Can we have breakfast? Bonus points if we have a good source of protein with breakfast, that's it. So nutrition is, I guess, where I I think an easy -ish place to start is because we can make some small but impactful changes.
But if nutrition seems like something you just can't even tackle right now, maybe journaling. Maybe you do the sleep hygiene habits. So I'd say it's whatever you can do in this moment without adding more stress to your plate.
But, if we wanna talk about the nutrition side of things, because obviously that's where I'm very passionate, I there's ways that we make make some changes that don't add to your stress bucket. So one thing I commonly see with a lot of my clients is you wake up, often you're going to work out and you are doing it fasted, you get home, maybe you have coffee and then you are heading right to the work because you were late or you eat breakfast in the car on the way to a work.
You are working through your lunch because we are all over work these days and the next thing you know is a dinner time and you're starving, and you feel like you have quote unquote, no willpower. This is where I would start, you know, one, I don't love fasted workouts.
I think that we need nourishment to work out. If you are working out in the morning, maybe have a simple piece of fruit or like a handful of nuts or seeds. And then after your workout, before you Have coffee, have simple breakfast.
if you don t love eating breakfast, this could be as simple as a piece fruit with like nut or a seed butter, a piece of toast. If you like breakfast, my favorite things are like overnight oats, you could do a smoothie.
Smoothies are my favorite during high periods of stress, You can pack a ton of nutrients into a Smoothie and you just blend it up and just drink to it wherever you are. So I would say, if your day looks like what I described, start with adding breakfast and having breakfast with or before your coffee so that you're not having coffee on an empty stomach.
And then we had this conversation on my podcast as well as, you know, especially busy moms, you can go all day without eating. Set reminders on your phone, have those snacks or blood sugar stability, which is again, a stressor.
We want to be eating every three to four hours. We wanna make sure you are eating enough throughout the day so your body doesn't feel like it's stressed because you're not getting enough nourishment.
And so that you are not overeating in the evening and you eating more than your digestive capacity. It's making it harder to sleep because your body is focusing on digestion. So eating enough throughout the day is a really big place to start.
I love to encourage protein rich breakfast where I can, whether it's a smoothie, eggs or even like a Greek yogurt. Having these staples, like pantry staples on hand, can make this an easier process. And then, you know, when it comes to coffee drinking, are we over consuming those stimulants throughout the day?
Those can have negative impacts on our stress levels because they're stimulating to the central nervous system. Sometimes, yes, as a brand new mom, you need a little bit of coffee to get through your day.
But you could also think about some lower caffeine alternative something like a matcha latte still has caffeine but it also is full of antioxidants that your body will love during periods of stress or maybe you do like a half calf where you know you mix some decaf and simple calf beans and you get a little bit of a kick but, it's not quite as much.
Thinking about are you over consuming those stimulants? Are you drinking enough water? You know hydration, dehydration is stressful in the body and a symptom of dehydration can be anxiety. Are you pushing through workouts even though your body's really telling you you need a break?
Maybe if you still want to move your body you opt for more restful or restorative forms of exercise like walking or yoga or something that's still going to get the blood flowing, but you know you don't need to be doing HIIT workouts every day.
So those are the few of them. That's a lot but I mean those are a few especially the nutrition components that I would focus on.
I love that you pointed out eating breakfast. I used to wear it as a badge of honor that I didn't need breakfast and I could make it through my day without eating breakfasts. And my brother is still the same way.
He's like, I'm so cool. I don't to eat until lunchtime. It saves me time in morning. And now that I have like gone through this journey of burnout and learning all of this stuff about nutrition I'm like, I don't know how you survive without breakfast because now I know I am so used to eating breakfast and my body is so much better.
I cannot function without breakfasts. So for my mom who is listening, if you sit there and you're like okay that's great but I not hungry when I eat or when wake up in the morning, that is a sign. I was just gonna say this is a symptom of stress.
Yeah, that's the symptom of stressed that the symptoms of imbalanced cortisol. That is your indicator that we need to eat breakfast if you aren't desiring it and you don't have to get 500 calories right off the bat just like you said.
Start small, have toast and an egg if never eat breakfasts. start small or have one of my adrenal smoothies. I don t know if I told you this in our podcast Britney but I I, I love the adrenal mocktails, but for me, it's too much sugar all at once, even though it supposed to help the adrenaline.
So I created an adrenals movie where it got the vitamin C, the sodium, potassium, um, but then it also has protein, fat and fiber so that it regulates your blood sugar and it calorie dense as well so you can have it as a meal and still get all the benefits of nourishing your adrenales and helping regulate your body.
so that's one of my favorite things to do in the morning is I'll make an adrenal smoothie to just like get me on the right track or right off the bat and yeah just, like you said, focusing on what you can do I think is the most important thing because yeah some people maybe you are good at eating breakfast but then you forget to eat for seven hours or maybe you're really good about eating all day but you forgot to go outside and like breathe fresh air and look at the sun.
So figuring out what's doable for you right now and what something very simple that you can change and just focus on one thing at a time. I feel like a lot of us are like, oh my gosh, I need to do all of these things.
And then we get in that paralysis of there's so much to I can't do anything. 100%. We live in this all or nothing kind of world, right? Where it's like I'm used to everything perfectly, but if I can't do it all perfectly, I'm just not gonna do anything at all.
And that is the opposite of what I work on with my clients. I am like, what is one thing that you can do today? Can you have breakfast? Or if you eat breakfast, yeah, and you don't eat anything else, let's focus on lunch.
You know, how much color can you get on your plate? Like you mentioned with the adrenal smoothie, one of the things that I commonly see missing is balance in a plate or in a meal. As much as I think the Adrenal cocktail is great, because it provides you with the nutrients your adrenals love, right?
But you're exactly right. It is a bit of a blood sugar spike, which like stressful. Um, so adding a source of protein, fat and fiber to meals, maybe you do eat breakfast, lunch and dinner, but you like, oh shoot, I don't know where my protein is coming from.
Think about those things because adding that balance in that protein fat, and fibers is going to help slow that release of glucose into the bloodstream, which is not only going to help with the blood sugar roller coaster, but it's going to help your energy levels.
A lot of the time when I see clients, specifically lunch, I see this a lot. It's missing either a good complex carb. It is missing a source of protein. And then that's how you get that energy crash at 3 p .m.
So if we focus on a nice balanced lunch then, you know, not only are our adrenals a little happier, our blood sugars a little more balanced, but we might notice more energy as you know we have this more consistent and sustained release of glucose into the bloodstream.
That's such a good point and something else I wanted to touch on was because I've had a lot of my clients and a lotta my mom say this they're like okay that's great but I have little kids pulling at my pant leg all day I can't sit down to eat a meal or you know, it's like World War III trying to drag my kids outside or whatever your battle is.
It's really hard with little kids. I have a two and a half year old toddler, I Have a three -month -old baby and my husband's deployed so I'm doing it by myself. I know the struggle and something that my friend Allegra told me when I was talking to her about how stressed I, was she said, okay, we need to practice the three D's she said do delegate or delete and she's like if you're feeling this overload if your feeling all of this stress I want you to write three columns of what you can do or what have to do and what your responsibilities are and then get really good at that list and find ways to make that possible then look at your list to be like okay what's something I can delegate maybe I delegate it to my partner, maybe I delegate it too a neighbor, maybe, I hire a cleaning lady once a month.
So maybe instead of me vacuuming my house and dusting all the blinds, I treat myself and I spend the $75 a month to have someone come do that for me. Is that ideal? That's up to you, but maybe that's something that will help you feel less stressed of, okay, that something I can delegate.
maybe it's finding a neighbor swap where one day a week you get to drop your kids off at her house and she watches your kids and you get go do something and then you guys switch the next week and it is your turn to watch her kids so that she can go have that for herself.
What can you delegate to still get accomplished but it isn't your responsibility? And then the third one is delete. what can actually get rid of right now? Maybe it is not forever, maybe its just for a month, maybe it's for a couple months where you kind of are trying to get out of this burnout and get yourself resettled.
What can you put on the back burner? What Can you delete for now so that it is not clogging up your bucket and making it really hard to manage what's actually important. And if you can separate your life into those three categories, it makes you sit down and be like, okay actually there's not as much on my plate as I think there is because now I know what's important like what truly is important and I Know the other things that if I have extra time if I Have extra energy I can do that but now i know how to organize everything and that helps take stress away as well you know it's funny like I don't have kids and some of some things that stress me out don' t stress my partner out and it' s like okay well he can do that.
Um, but also like, there's some weeks where I'm so busy that like even going to the grocery store seems overwhelming. So I'll order groceries and have them delivered. Like that's okay. I am great at doing laundry, not great folding it.
Not gonna lie, my mom comes over once a week and helps me fold clothes. That's like okay, and she'll probably do it more when there are kids around, right? I think like there is, it's good to ask for help.
Especially as women, and we have this hat that we wear and we need to do it all. And that's not fair. We're living in a world where, you know, it's just not realistic anymore to wear all of the hats.
So yeah, delegate, ask for help. And you're absolutely right. Like I've got kids pulling on me. Like, I can't make a meal or I can like sit down and eat. Do what you can, right? Just do what can. It's going to look so different for everyone.
And yeah, I love all the suggestions you have. I think you're definitely like the mom focus is there. You're living it, you are in it. And I that those are some really like real and actionable steps that you can even just like seek out.
Some other things I do like, for example, in the summertime I participate in like a farm share program where, local produce is delivered to my door. for you to invest in at the beginning of the farm season.
And I find that so easy. Like I don't have to go to the farmer's market every week. I can get fresh produce to my house and maybe I spend a little bit extra on delivery each week, but like it's like $5, like, it' worth it for me.
So, you know, I'm really happy you brought that up because especially the delegate, we feel like we need to do it all. For some days we're like I just asked my husband to throw some stuff into a slow cooker cause I've just pooped.
I'm like, you know, I just need that help. And, or maybe, you take advantage of the time when kids are in school, if you have school age children and you throw everything into a slow cooker to be ready for later, or, these nourishing meals don't need to complicated.
My favorite things to utilize are kitchen gadgets, like a Slow Cooker, a Pressure Cookers, Air Fryer. Toss it in and forget it, like because I don' have a lot of time to dedicate to cooking. And I'm sure a lot of the moms out there can can sympathize with that as well.
So, you know, I think there's often like nutrition is often over complicated. And it doesn't have to be where's your protein? Where's your fiber? Are you getting some healthy fats in focus on as much color as possible.
And above everything, just try not to get stuck in a rut focus on diversity. You know if you had an apple for a snack for your mid morning snack last week, maybe do a pair this week. Your gut loves diversity and your mind loves a healthy gut.
So you know, switch it up. But don't over complicate it. Like that's just adding more stress to the plate. I totally agree. Now I want to ask you what some of your, I know we kind of touched on this a little bit, but I wanna go more in depth on it, what are some tips for keeping nutrition is simple like do you have go -to recipes or at least like principles of recipes that you gravitate towards to keep things easy or do you like a handful of foods that just try and keep in your pantry at all times like how do YOU keep nutrition simple so that it's not adding stress to our plate?
100% I do a lot of things because again like I'm not in the simplify wherever I can. So one thing that you mentioned is absolutely one thing I do and that I recommend to all my clients is pantry staples.
Have some things in your pantery at all times that you can whip up a good meal with whether it's dried or canned beans, frozen veggies, rice, quinoa. I'll keep like personally like tofu on hand or even like some chicken in the freezer for some easy protein options but also the beans and legumes or something that I'll use for protein.
I will have yogurt on hand pretty much always in case I need a yogurt bowl for breakfast or as a snack or in a smoothie. And again, that's probiotics. So it's a good source of healthy bacteria. I have lots of different types of nuts and seeds to add to smoothies, yogurt bowls.
I even like sprinkle hemp parts like on my toast for a little added fiber, healthy fats, that kind of thing. So in addition to that, like I always make sure I have like coconut milk on hand for curries.
Again, red curry paste. I find currys are just something that's super easy. If I have a rice, a quinoa or a riced noodle and whatever veggie I can find in the fridge or some frozen ones, add some protein source in there and all you need is a curry powder and coconut milk clique.
It's the easiest thing ever. So I do a lot of those like one pan meals, where it's a stir fry or a curry or something that's easily I always call them like everything but the kitchen sink recipes, where you can easily modify, change your protein source, change the vegetable, do whatever you have on hand.
And I have a few of those recipes that I kind of rotate between whether it is like a Curry with a rice noodle, or I have this one that I love that's like a spicy peanut butter chickpea dish that I had with rice or maybe I just have a bunch of veggies that I can saute and put in tacos with some chicken.
Like that the pantry staples I find super super helpful and I think too like I think I mentioned as well the kitchen gadgets I use my air fryer my pressure cooker every single day. Slow cooker I'll try and use especially during the seasons where fruit, the veggies are in season like the fall where there's lots of root veggies.
My slow cooker is going crazy and I just freeze it. So I tend to like double up on recipes and freeze or put it in the fridge for lunch the next day um so yeah use your freezer as well. I don't know some people like don't like using the freezer but I think that that's like there's nothing wrong with it.
For me lunches are hard. I'm good with breakfast, I am good with dinner but i'll work through my lunch if you give me the opportunity to. So I find that if I make like a bunch of soup on the weekend or even like in the fall when like butternut squashes in season I'll pull it out of the freezer the night before and I can just heat up some soup.
If there is no protein in a soup which I try and have a protein focused soup I'll have like a hard roll on the side or something to get some protein in. So pantry staples, use the kitchen gadgets, use the freezer.
And I would say, yeah, I mean, like we said, don't overcomplicate it. You know, get your protein, your fat and your fiber in focus on color and diversity. That's a really, really great list. I want to add two things to that and you did touch on this the first one.
I wanted to make sure you reiterate is Like doubling up and either freezing the leftovers or eating the Leftovers for lunch especially if you're like pregnant and your preparing for postpartum Double whatever you make while so that you can eat something now while you are pregnant And then the next serving is after baby comes and then your partner isn't stressed about making dinner if they're never the ones that make dinner and all of a sudden you're out of commission, they're not stressed and like I don't know how to cook.
You're like go to the freezer, thaw it, warm it up, we're good. So I like that you brought up doubling up your stuff and then my number one hack that I try and get all my moms to do is making one of your pantry staples bone broth and just forgetting chicken broth or forgetting water anytime you need to cut a starch or make a soup.
So, instead of cooking your rice, pasta, noodles, whatever in water, you cook it in bone broth. It is like the easiest way to boost your nutrients, like without even trying. You're not doing any more work than if you were filling it up with water.
But you're getting the amino acids, your getting in the collagen, and you are getting the electrolytes. I would even say that like on the bone -broth front, if your are just like have no idea to have for an afternoon snack to sip on some bone broth.
Like it's full of nutrients. It's easy to digest. Of course, like we want to, you know, we don't want only to sit on bone broth all day, but it is a great like quick and easy snack. If you are, you got babies in both hands and you don t know what to do.
But that's an excellent tip. It is amping up the protein. Bone broth is great for our gut lining and it s packed with nutrients, so I m glad you brought that up as well. Okay. I just thought of one more question before we start to wrap up, I want to hear your thoughts on supplements because I know there are a lot of companies out there that have like an adrenal complex of sorts for stress or you know maybe you do recognize that you're low in iron or your low and B vitamins or low in magnesium.
How do we go about using and incorporating supplements? Is it something thing we should integrate regularly as more of like a prevention thing to help with stress or is it something that we do after we realize that were stressed or how do we know how to navigate supplements with all of us?
Mm -hmm that's a great question and there's like no real like straightforward answer unfortunately. I personally definitely have like food lifestyle approach first, but there are definitely some nutrients that we're just like not getting much of from our food, magnesium being a really key example.
Magnesium, something that like we are just noticing so depleted in our food system because of soil depletion, it's just not as present in our foods as it once was. Add into that, most of us are addicted to caffeine and for overly stressed.
Magnesium is one thing I think many people can benefit from. Keeping an eye out for signs of magnesium excess, which would be if you get loose stools when you take it. When it comes to like the nutrients, like the magnesium, the B vitamins, C, iron, particularly, I would say get your iron tested before supplementing with it unless like you're in a demographic that like is I don't know I'd say like I like to get those things tested.
B vitamins I would say if you are noticing other signs of B vitamin deficiency too like low energy even like B2 I believe it's B -2 deficiency you notice like little cracks on the side of your mouth like where you like right on the sides where your smile lines are If you're noticing other spines of B vitamin deficiency, doing like a B complex, or you can again get those levels tested specifically, B12, B6.
When it comes to those adrenal formulas, a lot of those are herbal in nature. So they have like ashwagandha, rhodiola, often like magnesium, sometimes alphinine or GABA. All these things are awesome.
Do we need them? It really depends on your stress levels. Um, I would say those types of things like the ashwagandha, the holy basil, the rhodiola, um, bring it out when you need it. I also love, like, I prefer to focus on like one thing.
Some of those like compounds almost have too much for me. Um. But they can be helpful. I've taken adrenal formulations in the past myself. And during those heightened periods of stress, you might find them helpful, um.
I'm also a really big fan of medicinal mushrooms. So like something like a reishi is like it's coined yoga in a bottle and it is quite calming. I work with or I'm affiliated with a mushroom company here in Canada that I love called Aversio Wellness and I have a discount code through them.
I Love a Reishi magnesium combo in the evenings when I am just really noticing sleep impacted. But it is important to recognize that even though supplements are natural, you always want to double check with your doctor, your healthcare provider, make sure there's no interactions with either certain medications or health conditions that you have.
So I would say that there is no blanket approach, but in terms of long -term usage, I'm really only comfortable with nutrients, like the magnesium, the B vitamins, that type of thing. the herbal approaches I think can be more short -term when we are in kind of the thick of it if that makes sense.
Yeah that was a super great answer and I agree with everything that you said. I there are some like magnesium that I just take daily because I'm breastfeeding and breastfeeding is a stress on the body and i just like how I feel when I have my magnesium.
So that's just something I take every day and probably take it indefinitely and then There's other times where you should definitely test first, like iron. I actually, I thought that I was low in iron and so I about to get an iron supplement and I'm like, hmm, I should probably test.
I got tested. I had actually had not too much, like it was bad, but I just had excess iron, so, actually I have an Iron Recycling Problem instead. And so taking iron was actually gonna make my problem worse.
So, that was good. I'm glad that I got tested for that. So definitely for things like that make sure you get tested and then Yeah, I agree the things, like Ashwagandha certain teas. I know maka root is another one Doing it more like here and there as needed if you're already doing XYZ other things that we talked about and you still don't feel like You've had a great day then sure here in there.
That's great. So that's a lot of really good points. Um, I want to grab that discount code from you and we can put it in the show notes in case we do have any Canadian listeners. Um are we able to buy it?
In the United States, would that work for us? I believe so. With the, with the medicinal mushrooms. Yeah. Like I have, if you are curious about learning more about medicinal mushrooms, like Reishi, lion's mane, um, may talky, chaga, hi, like I'm such a nerd on this topic and I've a whole top.
I have like three different podcast episodes about it and hormone health and overall health and wellness, menopause, stress, and yeah, if you use code BRIT20, I believe I'll double check. I will give it to you after.
And you can put it in the show notes. I think it's something you could get in states as well and I find it is kind of like a food based supplement as all that I would bring in during periods where I need it.
For example, like Chega, when I'm traveling, so it's anti -inflammatory, and Reishi, when you're just like not sleeping as brave, or Lion's Mane is good for brain health. So anyways, I went on a mushroom tangent there, but they're cool to talk about.
No, i'm glad you brought it up, because I know nothing. I knew about Lion Mane, and that's about it. So that would be really fascinating to learn about, is there anything else you want to touch on before we close up?
No, I think we talked about a lot today. And I just want to reiterate, you know, to listeners especially, I know a lotta of you are either new moms, busy moms mums of multiples, and know that stress is always going to be there.
That's okay. If you're approaching burnout, the kids aren't anything, we can't do anything about them. They're here for good. But we focus on some of these other things, right? Like, are you taking care of yourself?
Are you nourishing yourself, are are getting a lot of inflammatory ingredients, like highly processed, high sugar, lots of refined carbohydrates, are drinking enough water, are pooping every day? That's like your daily detox.
So just focus on what you can do because you are more limited in this phase of life and that's okay. There's good and bad stresses and being a parent is a stressful thing. It's a good stress. but don't try and get rid of the stress.
It's not realistic. And then that's when you're setting yourself up for unrealistic expectations, which is stressful. So I hope that you got from this episode a few actionable steps that can take to take some stressors out of this stress bucket, but Don't obsess over them and make it something that also stressful because that's not what we need either.
Yeah, I agree. Oh, so well said. I think that was a really, really great way to finish. I do have one last question for you. It's a question I ask all my guests. Brittany, what to you is a non -negotiable to living a well -nourished life?
Ooh, good question. And I thank for me, I'm a little bit biased because like my podcast is called The Balance With Brit Podcast. And my approach is long -term. term sustainable approach to nutrition.
And I think that comes with balance. For me, that's what's important. It's being able to go out for friends with nachos and like have a drink, but then also, you know, coming back to my GSE pudding the next morning and really focusing on nourishing.
So I thing for me it's having that healthy balance, having kind of ditching the all or nothing mentality towards health and wellness because in the long term, it's just it is damaging and it creates this perpetuating cycle of doing everything perfectly and then doing nothing at all.
So what I love seeing in myself and in my clients is balance, is having sometimes the things that holistic nutritionists would say don't bring into the house, bring them into house and enjoying them on a Tuesday afternoon so that you don't feel like you need to go in and out of this quote unquote healthy lifestyle.
I think for me balance is the most important thing in setting realistic expectations of myself and my clients. What a great word. Balance is really, really great. And it's something that I'm working on.
So I am really glad you brought that up. Thank you for that. Brittany it has been so great to have you here today and I'm so glad that we now got to be on each other's podcasts. So we'll have to share your episode as well that, we did together on your podcast.
I'll put that in the show notes. If the mama's listening are super excited and want to connect with you, be a part of your world, how can they stay in touch? How can you connect? Absolutely. Instagram is a really great place.
My Instagram handle is holistic Brit with two T's nutrition. I'm on TikTok under the same handle, but not as active on there. Head on over to my Instagram page and check out some of my freebies and resources.
I have a free seven days stress and anxiety busting meal plan. I also have a meal plan that is paid, but it's six months of stress -busting recipes, so it is a six -month meal plan. It's gluten -free, dairy- free, stress busting, and it kind of follows the principles we talked about.
Yeah, I have a few projects in the works right now. I'm working on an anti -inflammatory course. Inflammation is really a big root of the stress in body as well, so if that's something that resonates with you, definitely head on over to my socials and stay tuned for when that's going to be released.
And yeah, head on over to my podcast and listen to episode with Brooke among many others. I cover a wide range of topics. It's called the balance with Brit podcast and balance is really the name of the game here.
And that is kind of what I'm striving for in this holistic health space. Because again, it's just, it is commonly over complicated and I just wanted to just ditch that. So I would love to absolutely connect with everyone who's listening, head on over to Instagram.
That's a great place to start. And are you accepting clients right now in case they want to work with you one -on -one? Yeah, absolutely. If you head over to either Instagram or my website, Holistic Brit Nutrition, you will see all of my different service options.
You'll see some in -person services because I do have an office locally, but I see clients all over the world. So don't worry if you're not local to me. And I offer different packages and periodic workshops and that kind of thing.
So definitely stay in touch that way as well. Perfect. So many ways to get help from you and learn from me. That's absolutely incredible. Thank you so much for joining us today, Brittany, and mamas, we will see you in the next episode.
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