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Food allergy anxiety can result from a fear of eating something you aren't able to, or simply the extreme of not being able to eat it at all.

When I found out I had to avoid gluten, the thought of having to take out a certain food group 100% of the time, sent me into an anxious tail spin.

My Gluten Intolerance

My entire business and brand is based around living in the fluidity and balance of wholesome eating, and not falling victim of the perceived extremes the food world has created.

But when I started seeing my functional medicine doctor and she had me cut gluten out for a month, I realized I had a major issue with it.

I felt amazing, and many of my other ailments started going away. It hit me hard that I was going to need to be vigilant in cutting out this food group.

I had a hard time thinking about the extreme of this. My anxiety peaked at the thought of having to do something 100% of the time. I lived in the middle, knowing that extremes affected my mental health.

The difference with Celiac

While I have not been diagnosed with Celiac, at least not currently, gluten does wreak havoc in my body. After I stopped eating it for a while, I feel the effects of an accidental does fairly quickly. And each time this happens they last longer and I feel them more.

Still, I am not ultra crazy about it. I do not eat gluten, I know buy all gluten free items like breads, tamari instead of soy sauce, etc. And through bad experiences, I have learned that when I go out I need to ask for the gluten free items.

With Celiac disease, you need to be extra vigilant. You need to clean pans before using them, or even have separate pans, you need to make sure the plates don't share items with other gluten filled foods, and going out is extremely hard.

I don't plan to get tested for Celiac, maybe because my subconscious doesn't really want to know, but also because to get tested you need to gluten load for a while and the thought of that makes me want to cry.

Removing Foods from Your Diet

When it comes to dealing with food intolerances versus an allergy, it's simpler because you just try and remove those foods from your diet.

You don't have the added issue of an extreme life threatening reaction, so it's definitely an easier issue to deal with.

But this still can affect your mental health. Having to completely avoid certain groups of foods makes it difficult to navigate eating especially when you are at someone else's house or if you are eating out.

Can food allergies cause anxiety?

When you have to always be aware of something, no matter what that thing is, your brain doesn't get to rest. This can keep you in a state of constant worry if you aren't careful.

I have always tried hard to stay away from extremes, in all areas of my life but especially food. The extreme way of eating that are in our food world is something I avoid.

When I learned I had to stay away from gluten, the first thing that peaked was my anxiety. Thinking about how I was going to navigate all the things I loved to do, going to friends houses for parties, going out to eat, having my own dinner parties...brought me worry.

While I didn't have to stress about my life and an extreme allergy, it still brought me anxiety. It's common for people with allergies, or food intolerances, to develop or heighten their anxiety.

But there are things you can do to help!

Tips to Help Food Anxiety

Here are some things I have been doing to help me feel successful in doing all I love to do and navigate my gluten issue:

Fill my home with things I can eat and put them in a special place so I know that I will always have something.Before going to a friends house, ask when they are serving so you can prepare. When in doubt, eat before you go somewhere.Offer to bring something to eat that way you know there will be at least one safe thing available.If eating out, ask to see the gluten-free (or whatever you need)...

These tips for eating out will help you enjoy the experience. Whether it helps you let go a bit or find ways to eat within your needs!

While eating nutritious food is important overall, it's also important to enjoy the moment especially when you are out with family or friends. Sometimes it's okay to let go, and not worry about every little thing.

The Benefits of Eating Out

Throughout history people have shared food with others. Breaking bread with friends and family has been a long tradition celebrating love and bonding together.

While it can be great to cook for those you love at home, going out with others is a perfect break from the kitchen.

Eating out is a fun and important part of life. It allows you to recharge after using all your energy cooking at home. But it can also be stressful if you like to be in control.

When you eat out, you can't handle every little thing that is part of the meal. Even if you ask for certain things to not be part of your meal, you never really know what has touched your plate.

While this can be dangerous if you have a life threatening allergy, or even one that can bring discomfort, it's also a great way to learn to let go a bit.

Can Eating Out be Healthy?

When you eat out, you need to be somewhat flexible. If you follow a certain way of eating, you can certainly order something within those guidelines whether it's an item already on the menu or adapting something.

There are many things you can order at a restaurant that are considered nutritious and wholesome for your body. Whether they will taste good or satisfy you is another thing.

But, sometimes it's also really important to think about your mental health. Overall health is the combination of both physical and mental.

Mental Health is Just As Important

Eating out can be considered stressful for those people that are stringent with their food rules.

This stress can cause anxiety and frustration around an activity that is meant to be relaxing and fun.

This is exactly why I choose to let go when I am enjoying a meal out. I don't worry too much about what I am eating, but instead order what sound good to me in the moment.

Sometimes it's similar to what I eat at home, and sometimes it includes foods I don't often eat.

While I need to make sure to stay away from gluten due to health issues, I let pretty much anything else stay on the table.

How to let go of food rules

If you're looking to step away from the strict food rules you've put on yourself, there are a few things you can do. Eating out is a great way to put these into practice!

Look at the menu and think about what type of food sounds goodDon't let any food rules guide what you look atPick 3 things that sound goodLook over each thing and think about how it may affect you physically, sometimes food sounds good but may not be worth how it makes you feel (aside from an allergy which you need to stay away from)Choose one item to order and don't let the inner "rule follower" take chargeSharing a few items with friends helps you take small bites of things you may be "scared" to try since you are so used to following food rulesRemember that there is NO food police!

Ways to Eat Healthier When Eating Out

While it is really important to make sure we take our mental health into account, and not let the "food rule" boundaries take over when enjoying a meal out, sometimes you really do crave something on the wholesome nutritious side.

If this truly comes from within, and not because you feel you have to, here are some tips on finding something tasty but filled with nutrition:

Salads loaded with lots of toppings are often both satisfying and pack in the nutrition.Ask for dressing on the side as they often make your salad a soup. That way you can put as much on as you prefer.Load up pasta with veggies, pick a dish and then look at all the other veggies on the menu and add more based on what you know they hav...

The problem with clean eating is real. While eating healthy can be good overall, using certain language as related to food can cause harm.

It's hard to keep emotion out of eating with all we are surrounded with, especially online. But it's really important for our overall health, and if you are raising kids, even more so.

April with Foxy Over Forty

April is badass mom from the site Foxy Over 40 (site coming soon)! She is a soon-to-be Registered Dietitian interested in helping people embrace a more sustainable moderation based lifestyle approach to eating.

You can connect with her on her Instagram account where she gives loads of free info and helps others find a life they love long term.

Clean Eating

Clean eating is a term to describe food that is minimally processed and presented in their whole natural state.

It is looked at by many as a fad diet that believes that eating whole foods and avoiding anything processed can offer health benefits.

Criticisms

Many licensed professionals do not support the clean eating fad. They say that it is not backed by scientific evidence and it implies that food carries a moral value.

This can have potential negative mental health effects and lead to malnutrition when entire food groups are cut out. It can also form unhealthy eating practices.

Is clean eating elitist?

Because of the way clean eating is portrayed, it gives off a sense that if you eat certain things, you are bad/wrong/etc. This assumes you can afford it.

When it comes to people in low income areas, money and time is something that isn't readily available. So when you attach things like being a good parent, or providing well for your family to only eating certain things, it tells those that can't do this that they are failing.

The other issue is the disparity in education for what and how eating healthy looks like and how it can be done within the allotment of time and money you have.

It's hard enough to figure it all out for those of us that do have education on the topic, so basically we are setting those people that don't up for failure. And then on top of it pushing the idea that they are failures because they can't do it.

Is clean eating healthy?

There isn't scientific evidence that following the clean eating fad diet has any health benefits. In fact following a diet that is super restrictive can actually result in negative health effects.

The key is to find balance in our overall eating, and actually enjoying what you eat. When we force ourselves

The Vicious Cycle of Restrictive Eating

When you set yourself up for failure, you will fail. And much of the food world today unfortunately sets us up for this. We start with these extreme diets with the promise of the perfect end result.

The issue is that what we are expected to do is not sustainable long term. So when we get to that spot of not being able to continue, instead of looking at the diet itself, we blame ourselves.

We then feel like failures, and tell ourselves we just can't do it. We can't meet the goal we wanted to meet. When in fact, we can. If done correctly and in a way that allows us long term success.

Tips to Sustain a Long Term Healthy Relationship with Food and Diet Goals

Change doesn't happen overnight. It takes work and meeting those goals is a lifestyle not an overnight transformation. Here are some tips to help you along the way:

Separate morals and food.Find a path that is real, one that doesn't promise success short term.Focus on one thing at a time, you can't tackle it all. Add more as you feel comfortable and successful.Make sure to eat a "treat" every day, there is no restriction.Don't look at foods as "bad" or "good," it's just food.Learn to omit the feelings of guilt and focus on the successes.The long term game doesn't just focus on weight loss, it's also the restructuring of your mental health and relationship with food.There is no "cheating,

A kids body image is developed through the example of the adults in their life. When we have a healthy body image, they can too!

Kids see everything. They take our word in as the rules to live by. So making sure what we are putting out there is healthy for their mindset and will help foster their development is so important.

Julie Revelant: Health Journalist

Julie is the founder of JulieRevelant.com, where she teaches parents how to raise healthy kids who crave healthy foods.

Julie has written hundreds of stories for print and digital outlets including FIRST for Women magazine, Woman’s World magazine, Esperanza magazine, EverydayHealth.com, Reader’s Digest (digital), WhatToExpect.com, theBump.com, and Babble.com.

For nearly 6 years, Julie wrote Healthy Mama, a column for FoxNews.com where she covered pregnancy, postpartum, maternal and children’s health and nutrition.

Growing up, food was a center point in life. Every occassion involved food, and loads of it. She was raised to feel that if you didn't eat what was offered it was almost rude.

This led to an aura of overeating and away from listening to body cues for hunger.

Struggling with Body Image as an Adult

One of the things that is hard for us as adults, especially those of us with kids, is paying attention to how we talk about ourselves.

How we were raised around food has a lot to do with that. If we saw our mothers try diet after diet, talk about how they looked in a negative way, and struggled with their own body image it set a precedence that this is normal.

When we pay attention to what we say, take a step back and really listen, it helps us hear how we talk about ourselves better.

While teaching our kids about nutrition is important, it's even more important that we start with us when it comes to teaching our kids body positivity and maintaining a healthy mindset.

Kids Body Image Struggles

While it may seem crazy, kids struggle with body image. Especially in today's world. With all they have access to on social media, it isn't easy. Which is why it is that much more important that we lead by example.

Girls may seem to struggle more than boys, but it is still so important to address these issues with boys too.

Boys don't express it as much but they too struggle. Not only that, but as a mother of three boys I want to raise them to be able to support a woman one day (if they happen to marry a woman) and also be able to raise girls with a healthy body image (if they have daughters).

Helping Kids with Body Image

There was a study done that showed how daughters talked about body image in the same way as their moms. Both in a negative scenario and a positive one.

There are some important things to remember in order to help support your kids when it comes to body positivity:

Lead by example. Don't say things like "I look fat." or "I need to go on a diet."Focus more on how we feel inside, like exercise makes me feel so much better. Or it helps me focus on my work when I get out and am active.Ask them what they like about themselves, focusing on things other than looks.Avoid using words that attach emotion to food or are opinion based.Focus on foods and how they make you feel versus if they are "good" or "bad."Talk about how people come in all shapes and sizes and celebrate all bodies. Don't make comments on other people's bodies, good or bad.

Strategies for a Healthy Body Image

Julie had some great strategies of how she helps maintain a healthy body image. Here are some of her tips:

Focus on strengths, talents and qualities versus how we look.Eating wholesome foods and being active.Environments where self worth is important and celebrated.Finding organizations that support positive self image.Have family dinners, studies show this helps a ton!Don't label food with words like good, bad, etc.Be attuned to the media you consume, this can have a huge influence.

Diet culture creates a system where you need to stay in a box in order to feel success, this hurts your relationship with food and is unhealthy overall.

How we surround ourselves when it comes to food greatly affects how we view it. It's so important to maintain a place of balance and not fall into the black and white extreme of diet boxes.

What is diet culture?

When you use the term diet, you are referring to a certain way a person eats and what they can or cannot have according to that diet's beliefs.

While this can be okay for some, diets often have stringent "rules" that when aren't followed attach emotions to food.

Feeling like a failure for eating something out of the zone of allowed foods is a common issue. As is restricting yourself from eating something you like that is not allowed.

This attaches emotions to food, and can create an unhealthy relationship. While having happiness and joy while you enjoy food is great, making sure that emotions don't define the food is important.

How to Combat Diet Culture

Diet culture can create a system that values weight and size over ones wellness. It can confuse your health with how you look.

In order to negate these issues, we need to start the journey to wellness, with how we feel inside versus how we look.

Asking ourself why we want to lose weight, do a certain exercise routine, eat a certain way is important. And that why needs to focus on an internal goal versus a visual goal.

The negative effects of dieting

While following a specific diet may help us lose the weight we wanted, there is a lot of negative that comes along with that.

The effects can be physical, as with many diets that are not sustainable long term you tend to gain back the weight. And sometimes even more.

This yoyo type fluctuation can take a toll on our bodies. Both physically and mentally. Which is why it's much more important to have a way of eating that is something you can stick to.

Diets don't work

This is kind of a bold statement but the truth of the matter is, when you follow a "diet" that has food rules and makes you feel like a failure, it is not going to work.

This is not sustainable long term. Human nature has us wanting to feel good about ourselves and when we are laden with guilt and failure it wears on us.

Some people are also emotional eaters so in order to feel comfort they turn to food. Then the guilt comes from failing to stay within the rules and it's a vicious cycle.

You gain more success when you don't establish labels on food as good or bad, in the rules or not. While eating a mostly wholesome diet is best for your health, eating things that you love is an important part of that!

Food Relationship

Your relationship with food is like your relationship with people. When it's not going well, when it's filled with negativity and guilt, then it's unhealthy.

Relationships with anything should make you feel happy, confident and non judged. You should feel free to do what works for you at any given time and still maintain the relationship.

So when we do things like give ourselves "rules" and follow stringent guidelines we are forming a relationship with food that isn't healthy for us and is not sustainable long term.

How to improve your relationship with food

In order to improve your relationship with food you need to remember a few things:

There are no rulesThere is no food policeYou need to honor youKeep emotion out of itDon't put labels on food that are opinion based (meaning using words like "good," "bad," or anything that is based on an opinion versus fact like "nutrient rich.")

It's really important to keep reminding yourself that unless you need to avoid foods for medical reasons, you can and are allowed to eat what you want.

I like to focus on how I feel when eating certain things versus the emotion. Listen to your body. It's really good at telling you what it wants,

Crashing after taking on too much is real, especially mom burnout. Working rest and recharge into your regular routine is a lifesaver! But how?

It's possible to live a fulfilled amazing life without living burnout. It takes some planning and effort to focus on what's most important, and letting go of what truly isn't, but it's possible!

Energy Fluctuations

Humans expend and create energy. As we eat, we are able to use that food as an energy source. And as we work, we use that energy.

The issue is, that most of us (especially moms) work at a rate faster than we can recharge. From our jobs, to parenthood, to keeping up with the house and life itself, we tend to run ourselves into the ground.

Our energy fluctuates each day, week, month, year. And today's world makes us feel like we need to push and push and push or we aren't being the best we can be.

Women especially, are positioned to feel like if they aren't doing it all then they aren't good enough. Taking a break paints us in a picture of laziness, or having no ambition.

The result of no breaks

As we continue to push and do all the things faster than we can replenish our energy, it's like taking one step forward, two steps back. Eventually that becomes three steps and then four until eventually you collapse.

The eventual crash is what we call burnout. And mom burnout is especially a huge problem today.

We have so much on our plates, and feel the need to do it all and please everyone. The problem is that we don't include ourselves in that "everyone."

While we try and do it all, we start to burn down the vehicle that we need to do so. Our bodies. And society gives the impression that we should keep going.

Eventually, our bodies begin to break down. Our mental health suffers and our physical health is not far behind. Being overtired and stressed has profound effects.

The cycle then continues that when we go to the doctor, many treat the effects instead of the problem. We are prescribed medications to bandaid the root of the issue.

Rest and Recharge

Today's world is a go go go life. When we are down, let's splint the problem instead of fix it. And that can lead to ultimate breadown.

I have been there, hitting the brick wall. And until I started to work on the main issue, I was doing too much, I wasn't able to truly get better.

We need to incorporate rest and recharge into our lives. For most of us, this means reevaluating everything and focusing on the most important.

While at first you may think that's not possible, if you reframe the thoughts and focus on how you won't be able to do any of it if you burnout completely, then you realize that some is better than none.

Prioritizing what you want in life is a good first step. Starting with the most important things, the things you truly cannot live without. Even within those, taking a step back and looking at what tasks you need to do to make those function.

We often add more to our plate than necessary. Is it really going to be way more memorable if our kids first birthday party looks like an add in a magazine instead of buying some food and decor and focusing the time having fun with those you love?

Most of the time the answer is no. We don't need to do everything to perfection. We are the only ones noticing the details. It's us that needs to take a breath and step back.

How to maintain a regular energy pattern

So how do we do it? How do we beat the burnout? It's actually quite simple. Forced rest. Making rest and recharge part of your schedule.

I'm not talking, I'll take an hour to relax next weekend when "insert whatever" is done. I'm talking scheduling it in as a regular thing.

There are many ways to make this work. I have three young kids, a husband who works full time and then some, I run a business and we have life and school and allllll the things.

But working in time for each of us is essential to functioning.

Decision fatigue is real and can stop productivity in it's tracks! Research shows that when you are surrounded with too many choices, you can't make one!

This was me, always has been. When I am faced with too many options I freeze up and can't make a choice!

Too Many Options

They always tell you it's good to have options, which can be true. However, for many of us having too many can actually be counter productive.

This is a research based phenomenon and 100% real. As the decisions you have to make increases, the quality of the decisions actually decreases .

This is because we get overwhelmed by too many choices. Some of us can navigate it easier than others, but most people can't have too many decisions. It's human nature.

For example, I have the hardest time eating at The Cheesecake Factory. Their menu is like a novel! I end up ordering the same thing every time because looking through the menu makes my head spin.

Meal planning and decisions

So how does this relate to planning meals? Well, there a lot of meals to plan. Which means a lot of decisions. On top of that, in order to decide what to make for all of these meals you need to search.

Searching online for a meal you want to make when you get overwhelmed with decisions is like shoveling snow during a snowstorm.

Basically, we are doomed to fail before we even begin. Which is why so many people just can't sustain meal planning! Me included.

The Exhaustion Result

This is the issue with so many areas of life. Especially one you have kids. The pressure to make the right decision on top of it all is overwhelming! No wonder we are exhausted.

One main issue is our access to the online world. We see snippets of everyone's life and things look so easy. At least on the outside.

So when faced with our own decisions, we think there is something wrong with us when it does not come with the ease we see for others.

But the reality is that we don't see the behind the scenes part. All that we see online is the highlight reel of happy. Even when it is not intended that way.

Take me for example, I try to be as real as I can yet people still focus on the happy parts. While having access to a virtual world is great for many reasons, it creates a false sense that what we see is the whole truth.

How to Stop the Cycle

Is it possible to make choices that are naturally overwhelming easier? If we find the right support, and put in the effort it is!

One main thing to focus on is to stop comparing our real life with the snippets of someone else's life we see online. Just because you see what you think looks easy, doesn't mean it is.

Decision overwhelm is real and it affects most of us.

Another thing we can do is find people that we can lean on for support. This can be a friend, family member or a professional we learn from.

When it comes to professional/expert support, you want to search for someone that others recommend. Make sure you get testimonials from people you know or those you can contact to get feedback.

If it's meal system help you need, then you've come to the right place! My new course, Meal Systems 4 Success was developed to help those that have failed traditional meal planning create a meal system that works.

It helps reduce the decision fatigue that traditional meal planning gives. It teaches you how to create a meal system that is sustainable long term. And simplifies your weekly meals.

It took years to develop and was based on my own failures at meal planning after I realized I was not alone in feeling this way!

For a free preview on what you can learn, make sure you check out the masterclass below!

Putting a meal plan together used to bring so much stress. Wasn't it supposed to make life easier? It took me years to figure out easy meal planning.

We often make things that are supposed to help us much harder than they need to be. A lot of the times we do this because we forget to look at ourselves as individuals, and instead, we follow what everyone else is doing.

Dinner Stress

Unfortunately, feeding our families is not a choice. LOL It's one of the few basic needs we must fulfill as parents, partners, humans. It seems like such an easy concept, but it can be one of the most stressful things for many of us.

When I was a teacher, I often looked at a subject and saw all the things a student had to think about when learning it. It wasn't as simple as learning writing for instance.

To write, you needed to think about not only what you were writing, but also letter formation, letter spacing, word spacing, spelling, organization of your thoughts, spacing of paragraphs...the list goes on.

The same goes with just about anything, including food. We need to think about the meal itself, what we want to eat, the diet we may or may not be following, are we getting in all the nutrients, will it make everyone happy, where will we get the ingredients, what recipe are we following, etc etc.

No wonder it's stressful! And on top of all of that, there is the pressure of kids and keeping us all healthy.

Losing energy

So how is it even possible to plan overall, let alone make sure we are planning meals that are nutritious and wholesome? It's definitely much easier to go through a drive through at the end of the day.

I found that when I made the effort to plan all these healthy recipes for my family, I began to peter out mid week. Even when I spent time prepping everything on Sunday.

Sometimes, I didn't feel like making what I had planned but if I didn't make it, then that stuff all went to waste. Money and perfectly good food down the drain.

So between the guilt of that, and the pressure to stick to a plan I would muster up as much energy as I could and try to get it done. But then, eventually, I would just crash. And stop meal planning altogether for weeks until I could gain back my energy.

Simplifying Meals

I knew there had to be an easier easy. There had to be a happy middle ground between getting wholesome food on the table that my family would eat and not wearing myself into the ground.

I started looking at what it was I was planning. I realized I was trying to make recipes almost every day of the week. Recipes that take time and effort to follow.

So I tried changing things up. I started letting go a lot more and stopped trying to make every day be the best of the best. I also took forced resets, made myself do nothing a few days a week.

What I saw was instead of my energy riding a roller coaster where it crashed and burned, it started to even out. Meals became much less stressful. And my energy was more regular, which allowed me the means to plan better and more consistently.

Letting go of doing it all

I started to write down what I was doing. I started creating systems for how I chose meals and what I chose. I simplified everything I did. And to my surprise, my family actually enjoyed not only the food more, but also me!

I wasn't as crabby or invested in everything I made because it didn't take the time and effort it used to. But they actually enjoyed the simpler things. Good wholesome food does not have to be fancy or complicated.

And, it's okay to not eat healthy and wholesome all of the time. Letting go some actually is healthy for your mental state. Stress wreaks havoc and if healthy eating is causing you stress, then what really is the end result?

I researched the why behind all this stress and found that there is actually real reasons that many of us suck at meal planning! We are not alone, and it isn't just in our head We aren't just lazy,

Guilt is a beast we all deal with at some point, especially when it comes to mom guilt. It can cause mental health turmoil, but with support it can be beat!

We've all been there, even if we don't want to admit it. Or maybe we don't even realize what it is. Either way, it's something we need to tackle head on!

Katy Huie Harrison- Surviving Guilt

Katy runs the website Undefining Motherhood, an education and advocacy website for women at all stages of child bearing and child rearing process.

Katy has battles guilt in all forms throughout her journey. From food guilt to mom guilt, every stage has brought something.

The number of areas in which we feel mom guilt in endless. In trying to conceive, throughout pregnancy, as we raise our baby, toddler, or older child, as an adult in everything from our size, the food we eat, how we exercise or parenting...the list goes on.

Guilt and fertility

After going through many years of fertility, including multiple treatments of IVF, I finally was successful on IVF round 4. The guilt that I encountered throughout my journey came at me at all angles.

Starting with feeling guilty because I couldn't be as thrilled for others I knew getting pregnant without a few tears of my own, to the guilt I felt when I finally did get pregnant because others I knew had not been successful yet.

Guilt knows no irony. And it never settles. At least not for us moms. Once pregnancy came, the guilt of what I ate and the exercise I did (or couldn't do) took front seat.

Will the food we chose affect the growing baby? What if I workout too hard or too little? It never stops, especially when you've been through fertility to get there.

Food guilt

While you are growing a baby, or simply just eating to fuel your own body, guilt associated with food has been deeply grained into our society.

Both from the online world of what it looks like to have the "perfect figure" to the people we surround ourself. Some of us grew up being told we are too this or that. Or maybe it was the friend circle in high school.

It's a learned process and the more we succumb to it, the deeper those connections become.

When we are pregnant, even though we are growing a baby, many of us feel guilty when indulging in the things our body craves. Even though my doctor told me not to worry too much about it, assured me the baby would take what it needed and my body would do what it needed to do.

I still found my self feeling guilt and questioned if living on Hawaiian rolls and Swiss cheese would cause my unborn baby harm.

Some of us use food as a coping mechanism, Katy being one of those people explained how she associates it with comfort. But then the irony of that comfort is that it's followed by guilt.

How is it possible that the thing we turn to for comfort also causes guilt? And what about those of us like me, that lose our desire for food in times of stress? Should I feel more or less guilty?

Guilt and children

Once we finally get our babies safely into this world, the onset of guilt we feel comes in droves.

From the breastmilk versus formula debate, to homemade baby food, when do you start introducing things like nuts, do you let them get dirty or put them in a bubble, and how much to let go when it comes to healthy food. The struggle is real and the guilt is strong.

As we began to move towards a mostly plant-based diet shortly after our second son was born, people asked us how we would feed our kids. It was easy to fall into the trap of feeling guilty no matter what path we chose.

You're dammed if you do and dammed if you don't honestly. There will always be someone giving an opinion lathered with a thick guilt trip.

So it's up to us to stand our ground and work on that mom guilt. I believe our kids need to experience things, especially food, for themselves in order to develop a healthy guilt free relationship with it.

Our mental health affects physical health. Looking at the big picture of how our body reacts to things can be an integral part of our health and wellness.

My life changed for the better when I started opening my mind to other ways of healing. Dr. Nicole Huffman was a huge part of my plan for overall health and wellness.

Dr. Nicole Huffman- Naturopathic Medicine

Dr. Nicole Huffman has been an integral part of my recent healing. She practices functional and naturopathic medicine both in person in Colorado where she lives and also is able to treat some patients remotely.

She uses a combo of western and eastern medicine to treat her patients. She helps people with a variety of issues and believes the body is like an onion, having many layers.

She likes to let the body guide her in what it wants to heal first. As each layer is dealt with, new layers emerge. She says that most people's imbalances are 3 things: infectious burden (like chronic infections), toxic burden or emotional stress.

Her treatments have helped many people achieve their health goals. You can find her on her website and also connect with her on Instagram!

The Relationship Between Physical and Emotional Health

Every time you wake up feeling yuck, doesn't mean you have an actual cold. Sometimes, it's actually emotion playing a roll.

Ever since I started working with Dr. Nicole Huffman, I have had moments when I feel like a cold is coming on. Particularly issues with my right lung. However after a session with her tackling the underlying emotions, it's amazing how I clear up.

Sometimes, things that happen to us now are actually linked to things that happened when we were younger. These current events are triggers to these earlier events.

Once we uncover those root causes and clear them out, we find that these things don't bother us quite as much.

Our mind is a protector

According to Dr. Nicole Huffman, recent research is showing that up until age 8, we don't know how to process things, so experiences are often repressed and emotions can get stuck.

Our mind is there to protect us, so we may go through things at a young age and never deal with them until one day we find that we are having issues and don't know why.

It could be that we aren't ready to deal, and one day our body is finally ready to let go so this creates space for healing (this could come in many forms, read my friend Juli's story about her path to healing with food.)

Root Causes of Symptoms

When we have a physical symptom and jump to medicine or a pill, most of the time it is just covering up the root cause of that issue.

The body can have an innate way of healing if given the right tools and the emotional piece is a huge part that can often be overlooked.

We've all felt the anxiety stomach pains or the rush of a near accident in our heart. But did you know that all emotions have a place in our body?

In Chinese medicine different emotions are paired with different body parts, so you store things in different places based on the emotions that come up. These are all studied phenomena.

Stress creates proteins and these proteins are stored in the body based on this Chinese science. So for instance the lungs are often associated with grief.

You can use different modalities to help release these store proteins. That is what Dr. Nicole Huffman does and how she helps people heal from emotional imbalance.

Different Ways to Dig Deep

To find out what is happening at the core, we often need to look at alternative forms of medicine. While they may seem weird or different, they often give us a huge amount of information.

Muscle testing

Muscle testing is a treatment that uses energy to figure out what's going on with us. It is essentially just communicating with someones nervous system. Since energy knows no bounds, it can be done both in person and remotely.

We are electrical beings,