WELLTHY Generation Podcast!

84. Healing Through Food: Finding Your Way Off the Struggle Bus

• Naihomy Jerez • Episode 84

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We explore how healing through food works by comparing our body to a city where hormones are cars and food functions as traffic lights directing these messengers throughout our system.

• Feeling unwell has become normalized despite common symptoms like migraines, bloating, and fatigue not being normal parts of aging
• Understanding food as the traffic lights that direct hormonal communication helps explain why simply treating symptoms doesn't solve underlying problems
• The conventional medical approach often addresses the "cars" (symptoms) rather than fixing the "traffic lights" (food and lifestyle factors)
• Naihomy shares her personal healing journey after COVID weakened her immune system, leading to yeast issues manifesting in different ways
• Healing often means temporarily removing trigger foods that feed problem conditions—like eliminating sugar to address yeast overgrowth
• The body typically needs 7-10 days to show improvement when making dietary changes, and sometimes you feel worse before feeling better
• Conditions like PCOS, painful periods, skin issues, and fatigue can be significantly improved through targeted nutrition and lifestyle adjustments
• Learning your body's specific needs creates a foundation for long-term health rather than constantly treating recurring symptoms

If you're interested in one-on-one food and hormone health coaching in a very personalized approach, I still have spots available for my three-month offer. Book a free consultation call with the link in the show notes or send me a message to chat more about it.

PS: Check out the IG LIVE here!

Thank you so much for listening!


Speaker 1:

Hello friends, welcome back to Wealthy Generation, that is W-E-L-L-T-H-Y. Today's episode is actually an IG live that I did on Instagram and I'm just giving you this little intro so you know what's going on. And I give an analogy to help explain how healing through food works. And I give a personal example as to how I've been using food to heal my body, because I felt like I have been on the health struggle bus for like two months now. That might be familiar, I know. Sometimes my clients are like ugh, like why is the one thing after the other, like is this even worth it? And I'll say is this even worth it, as in the lifestyle, or do like trying to feed yourself well and live a lifestyle rooted in wellness? And my answer is always yes. Yes, it is worth it because there are much more. There's much more time not on the struggle bus than on the struggle bus, and sometimes it just comes all at once where there's a lot of things happening at one time and then it just kind of eases up. Also, I feel like the recovery time is faster and not as bad as it can get if your wellness is not good, like at a good level, right. So I hope you enjoy it. I'm also going to put the link to the live on the show notes, because one of the examples I give is this rash that I have on my neck. So if you want to, you can pop into the IG live and see it there. So again, if you have any questions, if you want to reach out, feel free to do that as a reminder before I let you go listen to the IG live, I want to share that. If you're interested in one-on-one food and hormone health coaching in a very, very personalized approach, I still have spots available for my three month offer.

Speaker 1:

It is great to go through the summertime, as much as you don't think it is great. It is great to be in health coaching in the summertime because it will only speed up your learning more or less because you're probably not in your regular routine. Your schedule is a little bit all over the place. You're going on vacation, you're enjoying life, and this is a really fun opportunity to do hands-on learning and be supported. I don't want you to think like, oh, I'm going to live my best life and then I'm going to start over in the fall or whenever it is. I want you to start thinking of how are you going to make this a lifestyle? There's going to be all different seasons, all different circumstances, and how do you gain the skills and the habits to support you through each section? Okay, and I know summer can be kind of a tough one, but the great part is that you're going to be supported, we're going to be together and you always have WhatsApp access to me in the times where you're like oh, I can't wait till our next weekly call, I need support right now, or I want to share my win right now, and that's exactly what you have access to. Okay, if you have any questions about the program, I invite you to book a free consultation call, with the link in the show notes as well, or send me a message and we can chat more about it. Okay, I hope you enjoy this episode. Bye, hello friends, how are you?

Speaker 1:

If you do not know who I am, I am Naomi Jerez. I am a food and hormone health coach. I support women of color in using food and lifestyle to redefine weight loss, heal their bodies and, ultimately, live their best, best life. Okay, and today I want to have a conversation about healing through food. What does that look like? What does that mean, I want to give you a very practical example, like real life example, that you can relate to, and how does that affect your body? And then I'll give you an example of how I'm going through that right now and how I am healing myself through food. Well, a combination of the two, okay. So I posted recently on my stories, or maybe it's still up. Do you understand what it means to heal through food?

Speaker 1:

I know I say that a lot, but a lot of times you might not understand what that is or why is it important or why does it matter. So the first thing is that we are so used to feeling a certain way, our baseline, that we don't understand most of the time what it feels like to feel well in our bodies. I know I didn't. And a lot of times when we're suffering from things like migraine and bloating and pain and fatigue and exhaustion, it is kind of glossed over as normal just because it's common is not normal. I want you to know that. So it's like, oh, you're aging and that's why, or you're getting older, that's why I mean that's the same thing. Or you are working a lot and you're tired and you have so many responsibilities and, yeah, you can be tired from those things and, yes, we are aging and that impacts us at a certain capacity, but it doesn't mean that we're always, always, always not feeling well or there's something happening in our body that we're like we have no control over. I want you to know that there is a way not to have migraines all the time, not to be bloated all the time, not to be in pain, tired all the time, and usually we can dictate a lot of that through the food that we're eating. It is so important.

Speaker 1:

Imagine that your body is a city. It's a very busy city. There's a lot of things going on. If you live in a big city, you know exactly what I mean. There's a lot of things happening. Now your body's a city, and then I want you to imagine that the cars in this city are your hormones and they're making deliveries. They're all Uber drivers or whatever taxis. They're going from one place to another making deliveries, giving directions, picking up, putting down, and they're all over your city. Now the food is the traffic lights.

Speaker 1:

So I want you to imagine that the traffic lights are not working in a busy city full of cars. What is that going to cause? A lot of accidents. Okay, there's going to be a lot of accidents happening, a lot of braking and screeching and speeding up and slowing down, and it must be stressful to be a human driving this car, because there's not no self-driving cars. There's a human person driving this car and it's probably pretty stressful for that person driving the car because they are always on high alert. They don't know where another car is going to come from.

Speaker 1:

Everything is very disorganized. You need to watch all sides of you but you only have eyes to look in one direction, except for your mirrors, right, and it's really hard to navigate and to have control over what you're doing when everything around you is chaos or disorganized and there's nothing really giving appropriate direction. Sound familiar, anyway, moving right along, okay, so no traffic lights for these cars to have direction, all right. So, oh, oh, nevermind. I thought that my mic was not on, but I never connected it, so I'm assuming you guys hear me because there's the mic on the phone. That's why I was like oh, what is happening? Anyway, back to the story.

Speaker 1:

So what happens usually in this city is that how they try and solve this problem is that they always address the car. Okay, so the cars have broken bumpers and broken taillights and it's all in disarray and the solution is to go to the auto body shop and get your car fixed, to go back out. Most of the time, this is how illnesses, things that are going on with your body, is addressed here. Okay, so they're not really looking at what's causing you to get hurt all the time. Why do you always have a broken bumper and taillights? Those are the only things I know about cars, whatever. Anyway, why is your car always broken? That's never the question. The question is, you show up and it's like oh here's, let's fix it, let's patch it up, let's paint it, let's get you a new piece.

Speaker 1:

This is very true a lot of times it's not all the time, okay, but a lot of the times where we go see a medical professional and they give us a pill or cream to address the itchiness or the upset stomach or the indigestion or your joint pain. And that's good to a certain extent, because you do want some relief. You're not feeling well, so having some relief can help you, in a sense, continue to live your life, find another solution and hopefully, what you probably want is to heal, for this not to keep on happening again and again, and again. But that doesn't necessarily happen because the main issue, which is the traffic lights, haven't been fixed. And now you're also under a lot of stress because you're driving around in this car not knowing what's going to happen and you keep getting into accidents. So then you keep going back to the repair shop and you keep getting these solutions. So I want you to imagine you take your car to the shop about 15, 20 times.

Speaker 1:

No matter how much you keep repairing it and replacing pieces and painting it, and all of that, it's not really going to look the same anymore or as new or as nice, right? Unless you're repairing the whole outer shell, which then it kind of defeats the purpose. So that's the same thing that happens with us, where it's like the band-aid approach right, let's put on this cream, let's try this lotion, let's try this medication and and that medication, and it's not necessarily solving the root cause of it. Okay, so imagine if we fix the lights, if we go to and fix the lights, that way the cars have direction as to where to go or how to drive or what to do.

Speaker 1:

So now these traffic lights is the food that you're eating. The food that you're eating communicates with the rest of your body. It is full of nutrients, it is full of minerals, it is full of things like amino acids, which are proteins, fiber, so many things good, healthy fats for you. So hormones are like little communicators, little chemical messengers in your body, and, like the cars, they're little chemical messengers in your body and they need to be directed as to what to do, either by other hormones a domino effect but usually you can direct them from the outside in as to mostly how you eat, but also other lifestyle factors like how you manage your stress, how's your sleep, things like that. So I want you to consider going and fixing the traffic lights in your body, which again is like the food, to then address the problem of the cars who keep on crashing to each other. That's how I want you to start thinking about it. So how can you direct things in your body so that things are always not clashing your body, so that things are always not clashing? You're always not feeling not your best.

Speaker 1:

Okay, and like I said in the beginning, a lot of times we don't know this information, we are not aware as to how much autonomy we have A lot of times when it comes to our health and things that we can do to improve our wellness overall, and that most of the time we're going to get support, but it's not the in-depth support that we need, and a lot of the times, the institutions that we go to don't have the time or maybe don't have the knowledge or the education to go as deep with you to understand what is wrong with the traffic lights, what is wrong or what's happening with the food that you're eating. How do we repair this? You need specific tools to go ahead and repair the traffic lights, and a lot of times that is the whole knowledge base that's missing. Not knowing understanding food, although it's supposed to be something super simple. You just eat, but it's not just you just eat, it's how you eat that really dictates what's happening inside of your body, and I hope that this analogy was helpful because I know a lot of times it helps me understand concepts better, and one way that I'm doing this myself is that I've had like a I don't know a wave of stuff going on with me right.

Speaker 1:

So it started in March when I got COVID for like two months, and then it took me not two months, two weeks. It took me a while to heal from that and again lots of. I did use over-the-counter medication to help me feel better. But I understood that the way my body was going to heal was from my own immune system supporting me to whatever was happening. So what I did when I felt better was I made myself things to eat or I rested to give my body the tools that it needed so that it can heal me while I was feeling okay taking these over-the-counter medications. So that happened. That was a big knock to my immune system and then I ended up with a yeast infection.

Speaker 1:

I believe I think I know what happened. Another thing I do is I start to see what am I doing different, what am I not doing, what am I skipping? And it helps me. What were the outlier circumstances that happened within the last two weeks to help me piece together what might have caused this and what can I do to prevent it in the future? Right, preventative care. And it was really mind blowing to me because it had been about 17 years that I had not experienced the yeast infection. So I was like what in the world is happening? What had changed? Another thing I kept in mind is perimenopause. Okay, because as a hormone fluctuation habit that can be a cause of it, but also there were a lot of factors in my life that could have contributed to me getting a yeast infection. So, then again, over-the-counter medication, combined with what I know, supports my body. To knock this out, one of the main things that yeast loves is sugar.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so immediately I did an overhaul of how I was eating and what I was putting into my body, in addition to rest. I was extremely tired in order to start to heal myself, and these are very specific scenarios where there's a very specific problem that I'm trying to solve for. But on the day to day, I try and communicate with my body in a way that is supportive of my overall wellness, and clearly, I was probably doing things that my body was not handling so well, and that's okay. That is just a redirection, that is just a reminder, that is just a reset. Also, my immune system took a really big hit, getting COVID. But it's this good reminder of what I do, how I eat, how I interact with myself, has direct effects with what happens to me.

Speaker 1:

What is going on Not all of the time, right, it's really hard. This is speculation, almost right. I am not scientifically gathering information, but when you start to look at the patterns and what happens, then this starts to make sense. One time I told my client sometimes we don't know exactly what the root of it is, but we can work on the solution. We can work on the solution of it. So that got right. I actually went to my doctor because I wanted to make sure that everything was okay. I know that those things are sensitive, so I just really wanted to make sure and have some evidence of a test that she ran and things like that that things were okay.

Speaker 1:

Now, a week ago, I got a fun little rash on my neck. You can still see it here and I don't suffer from eczema or psoriasis or other skin conditions. It is just this isolated piece of rash right here on the left side of my neck and I instantly knew that it was related to something inside of my body. Now what's the first thing that someone would do when they have a rash on their skin and it's itchy? They go to the dermatologist, okay, or they grab some sort of lotion to try and make it go away. Me, knowing what I know, I know that if I go to the dermatologist, they're going to give me steroid creams. It's just, it's what every single other person has shared has happened. It is what has happened with me, with my son, because he does suffer from eczema and every time I would take him with breakouts, they would be like he'll grow out of it. Oh, he'll grow out of it. Oh, here's steroid creams, here's stronger steroid creams for him.

Speaker 1:

So my immediate thought with my rash was there's something inside that's not okay and it's most likely part of my digestive system. And I waited a few days and it got better, but it didn't fully go away. And then I decided to reach out to a health coach friend of mine who is an expert on stuff on the skin, like things that are going on on the skin, and she was like, oh, it looks like a yeast rash. I didn't tell her anything but show her a photo. Okay, and then I was like, oh, that's interesting, because I had a yeast infection two weeks ago and it is still in my body. And it made so much sense because the funny thing with healing, especially something like this, is that it starts to get a lot worse before it starts to get better. And that's exactly what I started to experience Now when my friend confirmed that this was yeast.

Speaker 1:

I really took it into high gear to start to adjust even more what I was eating and how I was eating it in order to give my body the space to heal, to move certain foods around or abstain from having certain foods in order to give your body the space to heal, because what I don't want to do is to continue to reinforce whatever is not okay in my body. For example, if you're trying to reverse your prediabetes, it's probably not a good idea to keep consuming sugar in high amounts. You want to be smart about that. If you want to heal yeast, you probably don't want to have sugar at all, because it's one of the main things that feeds it. If you are having issues with your gut right and certain people, consuming gluten or dairy might be a very hard stressor on the gut or consuming cruciferous vegetables or beans things like broccoli and cauliflower and cabbage might be too much at that moment. It doesn't mean. For some people, yes, it means that every time they have it it will be upsetting, and for some people, it just means that you need to give your gut or whatever's going on in your body, time to heal before you reintroduce these things again. Okay. So it's not this all or nothing thing happening here.

Speaker 1:

So I started removing a lot of things that I normally eat, like dairy. I tried to cut out as much as possible. What else? Sugar nothing added at all, including high sugar fruits. The only thing I'm having is small portions of, let's say, rice or sourdough bread or a complex carbohydrate, like maybe a little bit of sweet potato or something like that, or plantains. But even then, I'm being very reserved with what I'm having and I'm adding in things that I know help heal yeast, like coconut oil, like turmeric, like apple cider vinegar. These are things that I have in my home already, but I'm not necessarily using it as often as I'm doing now. I'm really making sure I'm getting my water in and hydrating. I also added in aloe vera or sabila. It is really good for yeast. It is really good for cleaning out your gut.

Speaker 1:

So I'm not normally having these things on a regular basis, but now my body really does need that for the healing of my body. So when this is over and it is clearing up a lot, it used to be a lot redder and it used to itch all the time, and now it's less. So I'm giving myself the opportunity and the time for my body to heal, and something I also read was that there's, like I mentioned before, this effect of you feeling worse before you start feeling better, and I feel pretty crappy right now. Um, I have mild migraine and I feel very fatigued and very tired, even though I am sleeping when I'm supposed to be sleeping. So, in a sense, oftentimes too, we get confused in the healing process of what it's supposed to look like or what it's supposed to feel like, and we're not patient enough for the body to do its thing. And I know from like, historically speaking and just in general, that it takes the body about seven days, about seven to 10 days, for you to start to feel better or see the changes or the differences, and so that's exactly what's happening. That's exactly what's happening. This is how I'm using food, or adjusting food so that my body has the opportunity to heal. Am I going to reach out for support if I need to? And this doesn't go away 100%. We also want to be smart, right, and do continue to have a relationship and be in communication with different medical providers to make sure that you're healing and the process is going well.

Speaker 1:

In my opinion, a lot of times I went to the doctor. She gave me antifungal medication, which I did take when I had the yeast infection, right. But also what I know is that my body might need support and things might be gunked up in there. I need to make sure my liver is working well and all the other organs in there are doing well. Therefore, I also know that oftentimes when I go to the doctor like when I went to the doctor she didn't ask me all these questions about what I was eating and what I was doing. She was just like here. Here's the prescriptions, which I'm thankful for, and I did take one of them. But at the same time, I know that this is not fixing the traffic lights. If I don't change what I'm doing and if I don't give my body the opportunity to heal, then I might continue running into this problem, and that is something I don't want. So I also have my holistic health coaches on the other line, being like what else do I need to do to make sure that the insides of me are great or are healed, or what do I need to do? Because I am really great in some areas and there are other areas where I also need support. I am human as well, so I hope this was helpful.

Speaker 1:

I want you to know that this applies to just about everything If you're suffering from PCOS, if you have IBS, if you suffer from migraines, from bloating, from hyperpigmentation that's related to prediabetes. What else? Painful periods, certain types of infertility, um, skin conditions like eczema and psoriasis and things like that. If your hair is falling out, if you're constantly tired, if you have joint pain all of these things are 100% issues and challenges that can be addressed with food and lifestyle and you can feel well in your body again. And sometimes it might feel like you're in the struggle bus, like I have felt for the past two months really and then your body settles back down and you learn from those experiences and you take note of. These. Things are super helpful for me. I should introduce these things into my body every once in a while.

Speaker 1:

And, oops, maybe I should pay a little bit more attention of what I'm having, because when we get super busy, like I have been in the past two months, I kind of lose track too and I'm like okay, well, I'm eating out. More often than not, I'm missing the mark on hydration, I'm feeling tired, but I'm like okay, well, I'm eating out more often than not, I'm missing the mark on hydration, I'm feeling tired but I'm not resting, and this is a really good reset and reminder for me of like no bitch, you need to slow down. We need to actually continue to pay attention and go back to the basics of what you know works for you, and I want you to know what the basics are of what works for you. My heart hurts and I get exhausted from I don't actually get exhausted, but it's just so sad to continue to hear the struggles that the women in our community are going through with their health and their wellness and not knowing, like you don't know what you don't know that there are absolutely things that you can do about it through just your wellness, through how you're eating, through how you're resting, managing your stress, managing your sleep, and most of the time it's just information missing.

Speaker 1:

Like in the analogy I gave in the beginning. It's like you need instructions on how to fix those traffic lights so all the cars are not crashing into each other all the time and that can take you a very, very, very long way. So if you're interested in, let's say, fixing your traffic lights, understanding the cars in your body and understanding the traffic lights and if you're here towards the end, then I'm going to put the replay up or I'm going to also put this in my podcast so that you guys can listen to it but essentially is, how do you communicate with your body from your inside out? I gave the analogy that your body is a city and the cars are your hormones in your body, giving messages here and there, but the traffic lights are not working and the traffic lights are the food and the cars keep crashing into each other and instead of fixing and understanding that the traffic lights are the main issue, because the cars then won't be crashing into each other and will be more organized, the solution that happens is that you take your car to the auto body shop a hundred times, every single time you crash, to get it repaired and you start to kind of look like a little hurt out in these streets, instead of being like oh, if we fix the traffic lights aka your food and lifestyle we wouldn't be crashing in the first place, the first place, okay. So I want to invite you to learn more about yourself, to learn more about why.

Speaker 1:

Are you not feeling well? What's contributing to you not feeling well? What can you do so that you can feeling well? What's contributing to you not feeling well? What can you do so that you can feel better, that it's not just always that you're getting older? Do not wait for that diagnosis to happen. Be like oops, oh, my gosh, look, you are diagnosed with a XYZ Because, as I mentioned, there's a lot of things that you can do with how you communicate with your body from the outside, in how you manage your food, your sleep, your stress, your movement all play a big role as to how your body's doing and is responding.

Speaker 1:

And if you want support in that, that is exactly what I support you with and I arm you with the knowledge base, with the skills, with the tools that are personalized to you and your lifestyle and what you like, instead of it being some generic plan out in the streets that is overwhelming enough to follow. We make it so that it's sustainable for you, so it's not stressful for you, because that defeats the purpose, and you're armed with knowledge of why are you making those decisions? And you're armed with self-awareness of oh, I'm getting this rash. What might it be? Oh, my stomach is hurting, I have diarrhea, I have constipation, my periods have changed and have that curiosity innately be reborn within you so that you can go ahead and then address it in the best way that you need to. Maybe that is a doctor, maybe that is holistic wellness, maybe it is analyzing what's been going on in your life and how have you been eating.

Speaker 1:

But if you are this big age already and you have not found a solution or do not know any more than you did five years ago, 10 years ago, about what is going on with you, then we should have a conversation with me, because it might be just arming you with that knowledge and understanding of how to communicate with your own self, with your own body. And you can do that through just sending me a DM on Instagram. Right here you can go ahead and book a free consultation call with the link in my bio. That is also available and we can get the process rolling. I currently have my three month program available, where we meet on a weekly basis it's just you and me on Zoom. We talk it out, we see what's happening, how you're feeling, what you're struggling with, and then I start to arm you with tools, knowledge, information as to how to help yourself feel better, and resources as well. Again, sometimes we don't know what we don't know and sometimes the resources is how do you communicate with your doctor? What questions do you ask your doctor? What can you request from your doctor? That's part of the process as well.

Speaker 1:

It's not just a one-sided thing. This is why it is a holistic approach. So, aside from that, you have access to me 24-7 on WhatsApp. We have a nice, fun little conversation. I want you to always be supported. You definitely do not get handouts and it's like bye-bye, figure it out, because I'm sure you're tired of doing that shit. Right, you're actually going to be supported in a way that's culturally relevant, in a way that's attuned to the environment we're living in and in a way that is approachable. Right, like, being culturally relevant, not only in food, but in lived experiences, is a really big deal, and that's exactly why I'm here for you.

Speaker 1:

All right, someone found me because they were looking for a nutritionist and they were like every single person I found was white, and then I bumped into you. Okay, and now we're working together, all right. So I invite you, let's connect. If this deeply resonated with you and you're like damn, I've never thought about addressing the deeper part of what might be happening with me, or even consider that it can be healed, then this is for you. I invite you to contact me and I cannot wait to speak to you Again. I am Naomi Jerez. I'm a food and hormone health coach and I support women of color in how to heal their bodies through food, how to redefine weight loss, what that actually means for you, and how to actually live your best life rooted in wellness. We all deserve that, and this is something I want for you. So I'll see you later. Bye.