Latest / For the Love of Hormones- Miscarriage, Hormone Balance, Progesterone, TTC, Cycle Tracking, Conception, Holistic Health / 209 | Christian Women, Diet Culture & Fertility: Finding Food Freedom with Grace
Transcript
- Brittany Braswell, MS, RDN, LD: when someone comes to me they say, Hey, I know what I should be doing. We have to the layers back and we go, okay, well, you tell me what you think you should be doing. And not only what you think you should be doing, but why, why do you think you should be doing it and why that way? And who told you that? And where did that come from? because there's all these different layers deep of these core beliefs that we have. core belief, the way that I describe this to my clients is something that you believe to be 100 % true 100 % of the time. Bekah Yawn: Hey sister, welcome to For the Love of Hormones. Have you been trying to get pregnant and are struggling to trust God's timing? Has a miscarriage made you question if you can carry a healthy pregnancy? Hey, I'm Becca. I'm a wife, stay-at-home mom, and daughter of God. I have four children here on earth and three babies in heaven. After our third miscarriage, I left the doctor's office feeling hopeless and really helpless. Until God revealed what I was missing, understanding my cycle and his design and how to support it naturally. Since my healing journey, God has blessed us with two more healthy daughters. In this podcast, you will find answers to your hormone, cycle, and holistic health questions so that you can get pregnant naturally with God and the driver's seat. So for the love of hormones, put that pregnancy test stick down because it's time for a come to Jesus in hormones meeting. Okay, everyone, we have a really fun guest today. just going to kick off with reading her bio. Her name is Brittany Braswell. She is a public speaker, top rated podcast host and creator of the Joy Filled Eater Course, where she helps Christian women break free from food guilt, body image struggles and diet culture through a faith centered practical approach to food freedom. She's known for helping women experience real peace with food without obsession or shame. So Brittany, thank you so much for being here. I'm just, I'm joy-filled to have you. So thank you for coming on. Brittany Braswell, MS, RDN, LD: Yes, Becca, I'm so excited to chat with you today. We had so much fun having a conversation over on my podcast not too long ago, so I'm excited to do it again. Bekah Yawn: Yes, that's right. And your podcast name is Faith Filled Food Freedom. Is that right? Girlfriend, every time I try to say it, I like so trip over my words. It's too much, but it's great. Brittany Braswell, MS, RDN, LD: Yes, yes. All the alliteration. Bekah Yawn: It's really great. It really is. It's just hard to say. But yeah, everyone listening, her podcast is Faith Filled Food Freedom. And you bring so much to the table as you're also a registered nurse or a registered dietitian. Okay, so. Brittany Braswell, MS, RDN, LD: Registered dietitian. Yeah. Yeah. Bekah Yawn: You have a lot of knowledge I know you have a lot of experience and I would love for you to just kick off with sharing your testimony about, know, I don't know your background and what got you interested in food and in particular this away from diet culture and focusing on body image and joy in the Lord. the mic is yours. Brittany Braswell, MS, RDN, LD: Yeah, well I will give you the short version of this because this could be a podcast series I feel like in and of itself. I started off, I became a nutrition major in college my second semester. I was in another health related science field before that and had a nutrition class and thought, wow, this is so practical. Everybody eats every day. That would be hands on. I am a foodie at heart. And so I thought that This would be like such a neat area to focus on when it comes to practicality and health prevention and treatment. So I was like, this is made for me. So I study nutrition. I go through the process of becoming a credentialed dietitian. And in the process, in that process along the way, I don't realize it at first, but I start seeing a lot of patterns of language when it comes to food. A lot of eat this, not that in very rigid ways. of this is good, this is bad, this is clean, this is junk. Really a lot of what I would just consider moralizing language when it comes to food. And so much of what I really started seeing when I got into practice, so to become a dietitian you have to go through a professional supervised practice program before you can get your credentials. And so as I'm going through all these different clinical rotations and women's health and pediatrics and eating disorders and all these things, I hear the way that a lot of the dietitians are, you know, trying to give nutrition education. They're talking about food. They're talking about health. All very well-meaning to try and help the people that they're working with improve their overall well-being. But a lot of what was being said was very diet culture-centric in the sense of I heard a lot of this like moralizing language and What I started seeing when it was my turn, when I got to actually be in practice for myself and do a lot of the education and counseling is I would get a lot of like faces would turn and like, oh, here comes a dietitian. She's going to lecture at me and tell me what not to eat. And I'm doing so bad. it kind of just became a pattern of like, what is, what is this struggle that is happening? And I started noticing that the way that I even looked at food, I was like, well, I shouldn't eat that because I'm a dietitian and that's bad for me. It kind of starts going, when you start moralizing food, when you start using the kind of good food, bad food sort of language, it's very easy for that, for you to internalize that and go, well, I ate something that I quote unquote shouldn't eat. And so I did something wrong or I'm bad. you know, I should feel guilty. And so there's all these pockets, these opportunities, unfortunately, for guilt and shame to show up and to creep in. And when it comes to our faith, I just started noticing like, that is like, that's what the enemy does too, is like, he looks for those opportunities to creep in and like. infiltrate you with shame. And I started noticing that was happening with something that should be so neutral as food on we eat food to enjoy, we eat it to fuel our health, we might eat it for certain very specific goals. Like so many of you that are listening, maybe you are trying to eat very intentionally in a way to support your hormones or your fertility or maybe very specific, you know, performance goals or health related goals. And so anyway, I got in as I got into practice, I started It's not the information that is bad or that's misleading. It's the way that it's communicated and the type of language that we use and how we really go about teaching people how to not just improve their physical health with food, but to not throw their mental health in the trash in the process by making them feel all kinds of different ways about what they're doing or not doing. I got into that. That led me into grad school and focusing on disordered eating. I have been working in the field of, lots of working with lots of women with diagnosed eating disorders and then also lots of women who just really have, a lot tendencies to see food in a very negative light. They do not have a peaceful or a joy-filled relationship with food. When I say, how do you feel about, you know, the way that you eat or with food? No one has ever said, oh, I'm just so full of joy. Like it's such a great experience. I love how I eat or how I feel like I should eat or am eating whatever. And so that's been something that the Lord has called me to from, I worked in an eating disorder treatment center for a while, several years. And he said, I need you to walk them in through this process. But instead of only going by the book on what do we know about mental health and what do we know about nutrition sciences, I want you to show them how I'm in the middle of the process the whole way. And so that is what I get the joy and privilege to do in my private practice every single week. And I get to help. Women just invite the Lord into their health and their food freedom and body image journey allow him to give them lot of those breakthroughs that wouldn't otherwise be possible. Bekah Yawn: Yeah, that is so fascinating. I feel like I'm kind of like outside of your world and I'm looking in and I'm like, huh, Brittany Braswell, MS, RDN, LD: you Bekah Yawn: interesting, you know, I certainly do not approach food. I don't know. I don't know. I don't think I've ever thought of it that way of like approaching food in a joy filled way. I think I absolutely, you know, approach food with like, OK, this is good for my hormones, not good for my hormones, whatever. And I definitely try to balance things and all of that and not hate on myself if I'm like, you know, going outside a little bit. also depends on our goals, right? Like are we in a season Brittany Braswell, MS, RDN, LD: Right. Bekah Yawn: where, don't know, I like to do like 30 day, you know, strong focus resets at times. And so I think that is really helpful and it kind of like just resets us if we. get off pace and before we know it, we're just eating chips and cookies and nuts all day and like that's all we're eating, right? So I think resets are helpful, but I've never really thought about moralizing food. That is so fascinating. Is that something you came up with or did you like hear it from something? Brittany Braswell, MS, RDN, LD: No. So that's a great question. I think I just started noticing it, but I didn't have the language for it. I just noticed like, why do like, why does everybody feel like I am the food police? Like I'm coming in to tell you about eat this way and or let's see if we can tweak these things in your diet. Cause you came to the hospital with, you know, in cardiac arrest, what are some ways that we can improve this to reduce the risk of it happening next time? like, why are you preaching to me about what I should eat or what I shouldn't eat? And so, cause I was caught up in the like, do this, not that. And so yeah, was as I was really starting to dive into training when it came to eating disorder where it like, oh my goodness, this is what's happening. So that was kind of like the light or the filter of the, I've been observing this for so long, didn't really know how to put words to it or describe it. I'm like, okay, that makes total sense. And that is exactly what is happening so many of these people that I have been working with for years. Bekah Yawn: Yeah, so my question is, what do we do about that? Like what's the solution? Because I've found, you know, as a hormone coach, fertility educator and all of that, I'm like, girlfriend, I can tell you exactly what you need to eat. And like most of the time, women are like, I got it, like I'm motivated, I can do this. But I have had clients where... Like they have the answers in front of them, but they have a really hard time with like implementing it, you know? And it's not everyone, Brittany Braswell, MS, RDN, LD: Yeah. Yeah. Bekah Yawn: it's probably the smaller percentage, but it's the implementation that is hard. So that's hard for me as a coach of like, okay, I'm giving you the tools, but you gotta do them, you know? So where do you kind of fill in those gaps? Brittany Braswell, MS, RDN, LD: Yeah, Yeah, so everybody has goals with something, even if you haven't like written them in a Pinterest perfect, beautiful planner, right? Like we have all had things that we want to achieve or maybe that we want to maintain, whether it is health related or otherwise. And I think what happens so often is like women will come to me and they're like, Brittany, I can tell you every bit of nutrition information on every nutrition label and every food in my pantry. it's not a knowledge problem. It is, hey, I know what's, you know, what makes this food quote unquote healthy and this one unhealthy. but it's the way that they, when you categorize foods, it's like, this is what I should eat and this is what I shouldn't. And it gets very rigid to the point of like, it becomes a rule. And if you eat that thing that you've been telling yourself, you shouldn't, there is this guilt and there's the shame and there's this, this some sometimes very strict like here's my self-imposed consequence for Sometimes it's very direct and it's like well I ate this and so now I feel like I've got to go run it off or I have to go do this thing to make up for it right I'm going to restrict tomorrow or we're going out to eat later and so I have to eat less earlier in the day because I'm gonna save up right. So we get a lot of these kinds of mentalities that show up. And what so much of that does is in addition to fueling the guilt and the shame, we get these cycles of restrict, feel, know, restricted and then your hunger increases or mentally you just feel like, like when Chick-fil-A is closed on Sunday, like that's when I think about it, like, Chick-fil-A sounds great, but I can't have it because it's Sunday, right? So we start getting these like, emotional attachments almost to food even when we don't realize it. So we either we restrict and then we go okay I can't have it so it increases its desire. Oftentimes we quote unquote give in and we go, I'm gonna eat the thing. But since we've restricted from it, we have a tendency to overindulge a bit or eat past the point of what's comfortable fullness. And then comes the guilt and then the shame. So what happens is we restrict again and go, okay, I'm gonna start over, right? I'll start again Monday mentality. And then, we're doing so good. We're so good. We're so good. I really, really want that thing. I have it. I can't just have a little bit of it because it's been off limits. So now it has this shiny factor. And because I've told myself I can't have it, I want it more. And so when I have it, feels really out of control oftentimes. So when someone comes to me and they say, Hey, I know what I should be doing. We have to the layers back and we go, okay, well, you tell me what you think you should be doing. And not only what you think you should be doing, but why, why do you think you should be doing it and why that way? And who told you that? And where did that come from? because there's all these different layers deep of these core beliefs that we have. a core belief, the way that I describe this to my clients is something that you believe to be 100 % true 100 % of the time. And whether you behave that way, it's not always consistent or congruent, but those beliefs drive so many different thoughts and behaviors. And so when it comes to that core question of like, well, how do we do this? How do we implement it? it really comes back to, we gotta strip off the rules and we gotta go, okay, what is the actual goal here? And if the original goal, for so many women I work with, the initial goal is I wanna be healthier. For a lot of them too, it starts off with, well, I just feel like I need to lose weight in order to get this perceived, whatever this outcome is that they really want, and they feel like weight loss is the main way to do that. And I'm not anti weight loss. I'm not saying that's never okay or appropriate or you shouldn't have that goal. But oftentimes when that is the driving factor and we don't look at what do you actually want to achieve? It's not, it's not weight loss because if, if I were to get in an accident tomorrow and I were to lose a limb, I'm going to get on the scale and it's going to be a lower number. I guarantee I'm not going to be like, okay, I feel great now, right? Just cause the scale says a smaller number. weight loss is a means to an end for something else. Just like for so many women, maybe they're working on their hormones, usually it's not, wanna improve my hormones just for the sake of improving them, it's so that something gets better, right? So that I can have increased chances of conceiving or so that my energy levels are not so like roller coaster all over the place or so that my mood isn't all over the place. It's not, so we have to look at those driving factors. And once we know, hey, what do you actually really want and why does that matter to you? That becomes the new foundation and the focus for, okay, can we, instead of creating a bunch of rigid rules on the one right best only way to get to this place, how can we create some goals and maybe some guardrails to point you in the right direction? And if you happen to do something outside of that to go, okay, well, let's use that as a point of. observation instead of judgment and with curiosity go okay well I didn't really want to eat these things okay why when you ate them how did you feel were you satisfied actually because you ate the risi cup that you thought you shouldn't eat or did you eat like six or seven and you thought you were going to enjoy it but maybe you feel a little more sick now so how can we enjoy one or two risis instead of seven and so this is a roundabout way I guess answering this but hopefully this gives some good context. And that when it comes to implementation, so much of what I have to work on with women is we've got to get rid of this strict set of here's the one way to do it and figure out how do we do this with a little bit of flexibility and grace so that when something does kind of go off the rails like you weren't expecting because life happens. We were talking about before we hit record, I had a house full of sick people this week, myself included. I'm feeling better now. When life goes off. Our schedules go off, the way we eat goes off a little bit, our appetite changes. And so how can we create a relationship with food and a pattern of eating that supports our physical and mental health and that we know how to adapt in a flexible way without laying the guilt and shame on because we think we do something that's a little off. Bekah Yawn: Yeah, that's really interesting. So do you feel like when women get kind of the guilt and the shaming thoughts in their head, it makes them kind of spiral, you know, and just kind of like Brittany Braswell, MS, RDN, LD: Yeah. Bekah Yawn: totally veer off track? Brittany Braswell, MS, RDN, LD: think it's different for every woman, but I think there's usually a spiral in some way. It's not necessarily like... Some of the women I work with go, well, you know, I fell off the wagon, so to speak. So to heck with it. I'll start again Monday. I'm just going to eat all the things. Right. And it's easy to say like, broke this rule. I've had a little bit. I might as well go all out and then I'll be good tomorrow. Right. But sometimes it doesn't show up like that. Sometimes it's not showing up in the way that we expect. Sometimes it is. I'm going to. isolate more. Right? I did this thing I felt like I shouldn't do, so now I'm gonna like punish myself and I'm not gonna go do something I enjoy. I'm gonna get extra rigid and I'm gonna do things or eat things or move my body or whatever else in a way that I feel like is like this is good and this is I can check the box I felt accomplished. And so yeah, usually when guilt and shame come up, guilt is a little easier to deal with. Guilt can be a very healthy thing. Right? If I didn't feel any level of guilt because I don't know. did something really, like said something super unkind to my husband, right? And I didn't feel any level of guilt. That's probably not very healthy. I probably have some narcissistic issues I need to deal with that, right? But if I realized after the fact, like, wow, I really should not have said that. Like that was very unkind. That's a very healthy realization. We need to have some of that conviction from the Lord to go, okay, I need to, I need to make that right. But shame is when you go, not I did something bad or I did something wrong, but like I'm bad. I am the problem. like something is wrong with me rather than what just happened? How can we make an adjustment next time? yeah, identifying like when am I feeling guilty and when is it shame or when is it both can be a really helpful starting place just to ask those questions and again, get curious, look for what you can observe, not being judgmental at what you notice. Bekah Yawn: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Those are good reminders about the guilt and shame thing. I haven't been refreshed on that in a little while. that's good. Now, what are your tips in regards to improving your nutritional intake without making a bunch of rules or keeping shame on yourself in the process, especially for someone who really struggles with this? So, I'm sure probably a lot of my listeners might. You know, nutrition can be a core thing that we're dealing with. Brittany Braswell, MS, RDN, LD: Yeah. Bekah Yawn: Sometimes, some people on here, I'm telling you, they've got like the perfect diet, they've got it down to a T, but some people don't, and then some people are struggling in big ways with it. you know, especially for the person who is having a very hard time with their relationship with food and they're really wanting to get pregnant, maybe they're wanting to lose some weight in order for that to happen. not, you guys, you don't have to lose weight to get pregnant. Most often, I didn't mean to say it like that. It's more so, you know, maybe that's a nice byproduct of starting to live a healthier lifestyle and it improves your whole endocrine system and your hormones and your fertility and all of that. So my, you know, original question, tips for improving that nutritional intake when it's really, when we're having a hard and a bad relationship with food. Brittany Braswell, MS, RDN, LD: Yeah, so I wanna kinda give a quick two-part answer to this. One is oftentimes when you have a really unhealthy or disordered relationship with food, a lot of times nutrition specifically is not the place to start. It is starting with that relationship with food and what's driving the behaviors that you don't like. Cause every behavior meets a need of some sort. it doesn't mean the behavior itself is beneficial. But like if I keep hitting this news button, well, probably the need is I need more sleep. But just because I need more sleep doesn't mean hitting this news button is the most beneficial thing for me. It might mean I need to start getting in bed earlier. It might mean, I need to figure out why I'm not rested overnight. So. kind of starting backing up a little bit and going, if I have an unhealthy relationship with food, I don't probably need to jump straight into nutrition tactics only at least. You might want some support with that, like bringing somebody to help you get some guidance on that. like, if you're working on hormone fertility stuff, Becca, you're like a gold mine for this. So y'all go to Becca, her questions about this and you can give them feedback, Becca, so that they're not having to only focus on that. But when you can focus on... the way that you relate to food and how you see food and you know again the rules versus the punishment when you get to a place where you're starting to see food as more morally neutral then you're in a safer space to start really working on specific nutritional strategies. So when I jump into nutrition with clients if you have a nutritional goal I kind of follow a hierarchy when it comes to what are the steps we take to approach really hitting that goal when it comes to nutrition. There are going to be some caveats to this because if somebody comes to me and they have like hyperglycemia and their blood sugar is really all over the place, we have to do some really tactical stuff in the beginning to make sure they're not going off the rails in a dangerous spot. But for the most part, if it's not something super acute, I follow four, kind of a four-part framework for how do we approach nutrition. Step one is adequacy, meaning instead of focusing on what are the most healthy nutrient-dense foods I can eat, like start with number one, are you eating enough? So if you're eating 600 calories and you're going, well, I just want to get healthier. And so give me all the super foods and all the protein and all the fiber. That's not going to really do a whole lot for you if you're not nourished. So step one is adequacy. Step two then, I'm going to use the term balance. I don't super love that word because it gets used out of context a lot, but this is where we're really looking at carbohydrate, protein, fat intake. Let's make sure we're not deficient or like highly irregularly in one of those areas. that's step two. Adequacy first, step two balance. Are we getting enough of each of those main macronutrients? Step three would be variety going, okay, if we want more micronutrient variety in our diet and we don't want to get stuck in food rules. This is where a lot of people, when they have a wide variety of what they take in, this is where we see like the longest term sustainability when it comes to relationship with food. So if you're eating chicken, broccoli, and rice and you're like, okay, chicken's my protein, I've got some color on my plate with the broccoli, some fiber, the rice is my grain, and I've got some sort of you know, a dressing or a gravy or something that's going to put a little bit of fat in there. because you can't cut the fat out. So important for her on health. So many people think, just need to cut the carbs and the fat. No, you don't. Please eat the carbs and the fat. They're so important. And so they go, okay, well I have the chicken, the broccoli, I got some cheese on the broccoli for the fat and the rice. Okay, well that's great, but when you start branching out and going, what are two or three other sources of proteins I can start to work in? Or what are some other sources of grains? When you start adding the variety within each food group, not only are you going to work on challenging foods that might feel a little scary, but you're also going to get a much wider intake of your micronutrients. So those are your vitamins and your minerals and phytochemicals that do so many incredible things for your body. you're also usually going to improve your satisfaction with food. Cause if you were eating in a really rigid way, because it's the way that you think you should eat, that's going to significantly increase your chances for like binging or falling off the wagon, going off the rails, whatever term you want to use. Cause you're seeking satisfaction and foods not like you're not allowing yourself to be satisfied with food. So when you can increase and improve your satisfaction level with meals, you're usually going to be a much more sustainable long term when it comes to nutrition and regulation with hunger and fullness and all kinds of things. So that's level three. So we've got adequacy, balance, variety, and then that last step is like specific nutrition. I like to use the word MNT for medical nutrition therapy, but like that's your specific nutrient related thing. So maybe from a hormone standpoint, if there's a specific nutrient, if you need extra choline because you are pregnant or you're working on it, that's where you might go, okay, I'm getting enough of all these three levels. What can I do to get some extra choline in my diet? Or I am struggling with blood sugar regulation and I haven't had a lot of fiber regularly. So how can I increase my intake of fiber? And that's where we get specific. The big mistake is so many people want to jump to that fourth level. And when you're missing out on the three foundational pieces before that, they go, well, I'm doing all the things. I'm eating all the superfoods. I'm counting all the calories. I'm doing all the whatever. It's like, you can't just like start painting walls in a house when you don't have. wall to paint. Like you're trying to add all the beautiful decorations and do all the things that look nice from the outside, but if you don't have a foundation and walls and a roof it doesn't. You can't do it. So that's the the two directions I would say. Bekah Yawn: Yeah. Brittany Braswell, MS, RDN, LD: Make sure make sure you know where your relationship with food is and if you have a tendency to have a ton of food rolls focusing on nutrition first is probably going to make it harder the better. Bekah Yawn: Yeah, that was so well stated. I could see why you talk about Brittany Braswell, MS, RDN, LD: Hahaha Bekah Yawn: what you talk about because that was put really well in a very easy to understand and apply way. that was so well stated. That's all I could say. So good job. Yeah. Brittany Braswell, MS, RDN, LD: Well, thank you. I get really excited about talking about it if you can't tell. Bekah Yawn: Yeah, I really enjoy the levels because those are things we talk about. You know, are you eating enough? Are you eating? right balance of things? Are you getting a good variety? But I really like the approach of going one step at a time. And then like we can't even go there if you have like a horrible relationship with food. Like we got to start on that first. So that makes so much sense. Brittany Braswell, MS, RDN, LD: Yes, yeah. Well good, I'm so glad. I hope it's helpful for somebody. Bekah Yawn: Yeah, seriously, it totally will be. I have a couple clients of mine who I'm like, I'm going to have them listen to this episode. awesome. Brittany Braswell, MS, RDN, LD: Good. Bekah Yawn: So Brittany, just share with our listeners where they can find you. And we're just so thankful for you to be here and we'll wrap up in prayer. Brittany Braswell, MS, RDN, LD: Yeah, absolutely. So have a podcast as well. We already mentioned called Faith-Filled Food Freedom. We have right now an episode every week that comes out on Tuesday. So we'd love to be able to serve you there and you can find some free resources. If there is something that we talked about in the episode today that you have a question about or you want to know more about, I send tons of free resources in my emails each week. So if you head over to my podcast page, just Brittany Braswell, rd.com slash podcast. You can learn more about the show, but you can also get on my list there where I like to just send fun goodies occasionally and you can always hit, that's my favorite place to hang out with people. I'm not on social media a ton. So I hang it with my newsletter people cause I send it out on Friday and then I get replies going, okay, now I have a question about this thing that you said or this resource or this podcast episode. So hit reply on an email and would love to chat with you and hopefully point you in the right direction. Bekah Yawn: Awesome, thank you so much, Brittany. Yes, Brittany Braswell, MS, RDN, LD: Yes, thank you for having me, Beko. Bekah Yawn: let me pray over you and our listeners. Lord Jesus, we just come before you and God, we just thank you so much for Brittany and the sunshine that she brings and just enlightens and encourages so many people on the nourishment that you have provided for us in our relationship with that Lord. So thank you God so much for all the tips that she shared today. I just pray for a blessing over her business and her podcast and that she would continue to do your ministry there. And we just pray over our sisters in Christ listening to this and I pray that it would be impactful and helpful and encouraging and Holy Spirit that you would give our sisters the next right step that you're nudging her on with that next bite of food she takes or thinks about or whatever it is Lord that you would encourage her in this way. And we do pray that it would be a wonderful step in restoring her fertility and her hormones and her cycles, Lord. We pray all these things in your Holy name. Amen.