Latest / Motherhood Alliance Podcast / Food Sensitivities vs. Gut Health: Which Comes First? w/ Kim Baehman | Nutritional Healing
Transcript
- Britney Suttner: Hi, this is Brittany from MotherhoodAlliance.com, and today I am joined by Kimberly Bayman, a clinical nutritionist, functional medicine practitioner, and the founder of nutritional healing. Kim has spent the last 16 years helping people understand the root causes behind their symptoms through personalized nutrition and a functional medicine approach that looks at the whole person, Including gut health, hormones, metabolism, inflammation, and nutrient deficiencies. Kim's passion for this work actually began with her own health journey, and that personal experience now fuels the energy and enthusiasm she brings to helping others. She's incredibly passionate about what she does, and her fun, energetic personality makes health and wellness education feel approachable and engaging. Now, as a mom of two boys, Kim understands the importance of building a strong foundation for health and wellness in our families. While also embracing balance and giving ourselves and our kids a little grace along the way. We're excited to have her here. Let's jump into today's episode. Hi everyone, welcome back to the podcast. I'm so excited to introduce you to Kim today. Welcome to the podcast, Kim. Kimberly Baehman: Thank you for having me. Britney Suttner: We are gonna be learning so much nutrition from you. And I know that you are like a renowned expert in the Fox Valley area, and so we're excited to learn from you. But I'd I'd personally would love to hear a little bit about how nutritional healing was started and how you got into this industry in the first place. Kimberly Baehman: Yeah, I can definitely dive into that. I mean, a lot of people, like you said, see us who we are now. it it came from an origin story and just a lot of, you know, things years ago that led you to that point. And like most of my clients, you know, they all have a health story, but a lot of people you meet in healthcare have a health story that led them to be better or want to help people, I think that I've noticed over the years. And just like many people, you know, you think you're healthy. You think you're making the right choices, but we don't know what we don't know. And all throughout my childhood, I'm just eating the standard American diet all through high school, all through college. And you think I'm doing this healthy, I'm eating this healthy, I'm working out. And it's like I was my unhealthiest version of myself. And so I empathize with clients because it's just like I was that person. And by the time I was 21, I had been given. four prescription medications and in hindsight, most of them probably didn't need it all. It wasn't like something that I actually had. I was just so off balance with my inflammation and my gut health. and you know at that young age it was pretty scary. You know, I was having endoscopies and colonoscopies, doctors putting me on multiple doses of Nexium at the time, the purple pill and keep the stomach acid down and then eventually that led to the cascade of the next pill. Well this one's for anxiety and this one's for depression and then this one's for panic attacks. And it's like, wait a second, we gotta rewind here. Where did it all go wrong? and so living that path myself, I thought, okay, there's gotta be more to this. I don't wanna be that lady someday that's got a bag of pills. and this is long before I went down you know, the education route for myself. I was a business management and HR in that profession. And was that was my plan. I was gonna work in business and I did for a little bit. and then eventually after moving out of state a couple of times, trying a few different careers, life kept bringing me back here to the Fox Cities. You know, I'd been healing my health and finding myself in that capacity, figuring out the career. and I was talking to a family member and she said, Okay, Kim, we gotta figure this out. You know, we gotta stop moving you all over the place and what would you get up in the middle of the night to do for free? And that was one of the most important questions that I was posed with in my life. And I thought, Well, I have loved, you know, health and fitness and working out for years, but like I said, I wasn't like I was healthy, until like You hit rock bottom, you get sick enough, and then you realize, okay, y you what you don't have then when you're losing it. so I went back to s to graduate school. I got my master's of science in human nutrition and disease management. And then from there, my turning point was do I work for someone or do I start my own company? And I was that very nerdy college student. You always follow me in the library. I didn't really go to college to like live it up. I wanted to get in, get out. That's the reason I had the business management degree. And then it was like, ooh, maybe that's not totally my route, but here we are: business management plus, you know, masters in nutrition. So I paired them together, and that was the birth of nutritional healing. it started in 2010 by myself, and I remember telling my mom, This is what I'm gonna do, and I'm gonna do it well. I promise you. Like I I'm not gonna let this fail. And sixteen years later here we are and we have a team of eight of us here in the Fox Cities and we work with people beyond. Britney Suttner: Well, and you have not failed. Goodness. I you have you have had so much public recognition and awards and you're I feel like you're constantly just on different social media posts from different groups getting awarded. So why don't you share a little bit about that experience that you've had with with receiving these awards and like being able to watch this unknown of what your future was gonna be like to building this business that's now clearly impacted so many people in a positive way. Kimberly Baehman: Yeah, it's it's surreal. If you would have asked Kim in two thousand ten what this looked like, I would have never even said I had employees. I never would have thought like the thousands of people we've met would have been a possibility and I wouldn't change a thing, but it was a steep learning curve. But along the way in the community, the way to get your name out there organically, you have to get involved. You've gotta get your feet to the ground, get in these board meetings and networking groups and That's really where all the connections started. Britney Suttner: Yeah. What I mean what a great story too for those who are listening that are business owners, right? And tips right there Kimberly Baehman: Yeah. Britney Suttner: that they can take and they can apply into into their business. But I think it's also showing reputability-wise what we're gonna be discussing today and how you are really helping so many people with their health and their nutrition. There's so many people out there that are suffering right now with different symptoms. They've been to doctor after doctor, they have no idea what's going on. Oftentimes, I think I don't think this is mind blowing to people anymore because it it's Heard a lot, but a lot of it comes to gut health. But even Kimberly Baehman: Yeah. Britney Suttner: with that, it gets so complicated. Wellness is just such a complicated field because there's so many different facets of learning and everybody is different. I love in this episode, we're gonna be really honing in on food sensitivities. I have some specific questions. My family has done some food sensitivity testing. I'm not gonna lie, I've been a little bit skeptical on it because it's not really allergies, it's sensitivities. What does this actually mean? But I think to really dive into that conversation. We do need to set a foundation of understanding gut health. So just starting high level. Why is gut health so important? Kimberly Baehman: well, I've always said the gut is your second brain, but then I laugh and say it could be your first. it Britney Suttner: Ha ha ha. Kimberly Baehman: it runs the show. It runs the show. And going back to even my personal story, and when you're diagnosed with all these other things, the body's a system. So you think, hmm, there's a lot more to it. So it's like everything is stemming from the gut. You've got a tennis court surface area of gut tissue in the body from throat to colon. So if you spread that out, that's a that's a huge amount of surface area. And if that is dysfunctional, no wonder we don't feel good. It is so hard to be healthy. And with big food companies, and we'll get it more into that, you know, like we don't stand a chance sometimes. It's really hard to be healthy. And going back to like w how clients feel and how the public feels, it's just like, I think I'm doing the right thing. But we're being misled a lot. And then when you have gut dysfunction, you have to have a specific recipe per se to get yourself out of that because everyone's different how they got there. you know, there's more neurotransmitters made in the gut than there is in the brain. So again, no wonder we just don't feel good as a society half the time. Britney Suttner: Yeah, for sure. What would you say are the most common gut imbalances? Cause I know you do testing and we'll talk a little bit about that as well. But so when you do testing on guts, what are you most commonly seeing the problem to be? Kimberly Baehman: yeah. So and a lot of times people assume it's one thing and then it's like, aha, it's way different than I what I suspected. So I would say probably the number one thing people assume it's like a gluten sensitivity or I've got gluten issues. And I it it could be and we can dive more into that too. Gluten is a toxin in and of itself. It's just hard on the body. But we see a lot of celiac disease. We see SIBO, so small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. We see Candida. or yeast overgrowth. we see a lot of parasitic infections. And we also see like low enzyme or gallbladder issues that can be misdiagnosed as a gut problem. I would say those are probably some of our top things that people are discovering. Britney Suttner: Okay, let's talk briefly about the bacteria side, because I know that there's good bacteria in our gut and then there's bad bacteria. I think a confusing piece for a lot of people though is are those bacterias eating different things? Like how how does one become off balance or you know, when you take an antibiotic, it kills all of them. But then also from what I've heard, eating a lot of sugar is feeding the bad bacteria, isn't that also feeding the good bacteria? So how do these two different bac types of bacteria coexist? But also how do we maintain a good balance? Kimberly Baehman: Yeah, so that yeah, good, the bad, the ugly in the body, we we have we all have a little bit of it all. but then it's like when it kind of goes haywire, that's where you start to see dysfunction. the bad bath bacteria, you know, you can have pathogenic bacteria, which leads to disease, typically disease in the body. but you've got your good bacteria that's going to kind of work for you and push you ahead. you know, and a lot of people are struggling with a lot of that because the standard American diet lacks diversity, it lacks whole food, it lacks richness of the phytonutrients that you're eating and antioxidants. So we start to see more of like those bland blah white, you know, refined foods that break down in the body that are just going to fuel more of the bad, versus you you're getting like I know it sounds simple, but every color of the rainbow. and then, you know, just like trying to aim for the quantity of that versus just like one salad a day and saying like I got a vegetable in today, you know, I want to challenge people to go for all the different colors because that's going to be the prebiotics that fuel the probiotics in the body for the good bacteria. Britney Suttner: Sure. So it's really almost the that scale, you just really need it to be even and not tipping one way or the other. Kimberly Baehman: Yeah, the the perfect balance, right? Which is tough Britney Suttner: Right. Kimberly Baehman: to figure out. Britney Suttner: Yeah. So when somebody does testing, and if you want to talk a little bit about testing and what that looks like, you can do that. But when somebody does testing, they figure out, okay, I have this imbalance in my gut. Can somebody fix their gut just by eating a whole foods diet? Or do you typically really need some certain supplementation in order to get rid of the issue that they're that they found on the test results? Kimberly Baehman: Yeah, I know that can be a tough one. You know, if someone has a lot of underlying issues going on and they come back with that test result, you know, when we talk to a client, we'll always say, like, we don't know, we don't have a crystal ball, we don't know what this test is going to say. So be aware that food might not heal everything, but it's going to accelerate the process along. Now, if a pathogenic bacteria comes back, or if we have bacterial overgrowth or if we have parasites or mold toxicity, some of those bigger heavy hitters, we have to do some different protocols to eradicate that from the body first while we supplement that with a good diet. The good diet and any like your vitamins and minerals are going to be a good insurance policy to that process, but it will not rid the body of something that's very toxic, very detrimental. Britney Suttner: Okay. And then in your office it's primarily like herbal supplements or what are these extra things you're adding in to help combat that? Kimberly Baehman: Yeah, we will use just different herbal, either capsules, tablets, tinctures, all natural. We don't prescribe anything. you know, prescribing a good diet, you know, we always joke about like that, that's gonna help support it. But it's going to be very specific protocols per person, also based on their age, their life experiences, how sick they are, what they've done in the past, how sensitive they are. It's all very personalized. Britney Suttner: What would you say are some of the top symptoms? If somebody's just having some maybe maybe they think that they're feeling pretty good actually, but then you mentioned like these certain symptoms are like, actually this may be an indicator that my gut bacteria is off. So what are some common symptoms people may be seeing that would tell them, hey, maybe you should get a gut test done? Kimberly Baehman: Yeah, so well first and foremost, you think of food and gut, you're gonna think digestion. whether it's pain, bloating, diarrhea, constipation, those are some first signs, but they're not always the only sign or your sign specifically for health. your genes load the gun, the environment pulls the trigger. So with your environment and your food choices and gut health, depending on your genetic potential, you might have skin rashes. the next person might have neurological things like high anxiety, depression, brain fog, any of those things, inability to focus. we see it in children a lot too, because their bodies and terrain are just much smaller. So you'll see it in the skin and how they think and feel. we also have it just with headaches and migraines. and then sometimes, you know, going down a different path. Hormonal dysfunction can be led from gut health as well. Whereas we think I have a hormone problem, but we have to rewind a little bit and be like, You actually have a gut health problem, which is your hormones are just the red flags. Britney Suttner: I just think about there's so many people that they have done testing. Maybe they've done some supplementation to help remediate their gut. They get it to a good point. and then stuff still happens, right? And and and just an environment that we're living in, the food quality these days, exposure to different toxins or parasites or bacteria or whatever, that gut how do you keep your gut health good once you get it there? Kimberly Baehman: Yeah. Yeah. The initial, you know, hard work I always say, it's like I wanna reassure people this isn't a forever. We're undoing years of damage that unbeknownst to you was happening, maybe known to you was happening. There's like a little bit of both. and initially getting through that eradication and healing and switching things up, and then you can get to a point of maintenance. It's almost like You look at your whole body like this bucket, and we've got things pouring into it, like you've mentioned. And when you hit your breaking point, it's like that bucket is just full. And so we get that bucket reduced, we get it almost empty. And then that's where I want to give people hope that it never has to be perfect. But as long as we can keep that bucket, you know, pretty sl small, you know, with what's going on in it for toxicity or invasion in the body. We can slowly just live our life and not have things affect us as hard. So if we're at a Christmas party or a birthday party or any social event, if we have something that we know, it's probably not so good for me, it's not going to hit us as hard because your terrain has gotten healthier. the world, I've joked, is never gonna get less toxic, even though there's so many of us that actually care and we're making a change out there. but when you can get your own terrain. To be carrying less of that, to be a little bit smarter every day, it's not going to affect your symptoms and you're going to be able to be a bit more resilient as you move forward. Britney Suttner: Okay. Now I wanna I wanna loop in the food sensitivity side, but before we do that, looping it in with gut, can you just kinda give us a definition of allergies versus food sensitivities? Kimberly Baehman: Yes, so that is a big misconception sometimes when people will give us a call, like do you test for food allergies? And they might mean the other and vice versa. So an allergy is like more of an immediate IGE allergy. That's gonna be that anaphylactic shock, like your throat is closing up, you can't breathe, your skin's breaking out. My littlest son actually has that. You know, that's gonna be more of your epi pen or nephew sprays like Those are you're gonna know you have them. Then you've got food sensitivities, which can happen a little bit after you eat, up to days later. and that's where it's mind-boggling for people because most people are like, I don't remember what I ate for breakfast this morning, let alone four days ago. how am I supposed to figure out my body right now? And that's where the testing comes in. Britney Suttner: So when I think about food sensitivities and we're talking about gut health, like we just talked about, you're g our gut is constantly churning, literally, these different things and and having to manage the things that we're putting in. When you have a food sensitivity test done, and I'll just share my experience as in back knowledge. So my husband had we did food sensitivity testing for him, and his came back as chicken eggs and dairy as his primary sensitivities. My son, when he was young, he had eczema up the wazoo and we went to allergists and we went to all these different places and I'm like, he's I think he really has a dairy intolerance because he would always get this like barky cough, especially after having dairy. So we had him tested for food sensitivities and I was shocked and completely confused because he did not have dairy or eggs come back. Like I I'm like he is a clone of his dad. But instead he had white beans and And pineapple. And I'm like, this kid has eaten so much pineapple, and I've never once seen anything come from pineapple. And so my I I have so many questions around food sensitivity. So I guess the first one is when it comes to gut health, when we are consuming these foods that show up as red or yellow on a food sensitivity test, is that creating more issues and inflammation in the gut? Or is the gut not able to process these foods temporarily? because it has some other issues going on. So is it kinda like the chicken or the egg? Kimberly Baehman: Right. that is a really good question with the chicken and the egg, because gut dysfunction and how leaky gut leading to a food sensitivity begins can be from food proteins, but it also can be from toxins in your environment, prescription meds, stress, like all of these things basically figuratively poke holes in the gut. It's called zonulin, and you you have breakdown of the gut tissue. And as I mentioned before, it's like a tennis court in there. So the more damage you have, the more inflammation and symptoms you're going to be expressing. so to answer your question, some of your sensitivities can aggravate it and kind of lead the way, and all these other things are contributing to it as well. And then the more you have of those sensitivity foods, the more that you're going to have breakdown of the gut tissue, the more sensitivities that will follow, because you're having a whole body immune system response. So what was once normal, let's say chicken, eggs, pineapple, becomes the unfamiliar. And the body's immune response is just so overloaded that it's like it's almost looking at those foods now as if it's a cold or a flu virus. It wants to protect you from it. It doesn't see it as a carbohydrate or a fat or a protein anymore. It's like, no, here's this again. I gotta get rid of it. Attack that, get it out of your system. But in the meantime, I'm attacking the healthy surrounding gut tissue as well. So you're gonna continue to have breakdown. And that's where you see the list growing longer and longer and longer, where all these foods could be temporary when you know exactly what they are and are healing the gut at the same time. Britney Suttner: Okay, so to reiterate a small point that you just made there is you could eat, for example, pineapple, you're you know, the whole time you're growing up, not have an issue, and then all of a sudden you you know, you do a food sensitivity test when you're twenty and then you do a d and it was not showing up as pineapple then. You do another food sensitive sensitivity test when you're twenty five and it could show up then. So you can almost develop these sensitivities depending on your gut state. Kimberly Baehman: Yes, correct. Mm-hmm. Britney Suttner: Okay, so then I'm assuming the opposite is true, whereas you heal Kimberly Baehman: Yes. Britney Suttner: your gut, these sensitivities should fall off your list. Kimberly Baehman: Yes, that's correct. You don't have to be married to your food sensitivities for your whole life long as you're working on healing your gut. And a lot of people do get those tests back and they think it's like a forever. it's not as long as you're putting in the work and healing the gut. because it's not an allergy. Going back to your first question, it's not an allergy like a peanut allergy or seed or milk allergy, these are sensitivities. It's an immune response. The way I test it, it's an immune response in a snapshot, and it's a great tool to accelerate your healing process. Britney Suttner: And I think that is helpful to understand. So allergies are more genetic, like it's something you're born with, right? Kimberly Baehman: Mm-hmm. Yes. Britney Suttner: And then sensitivities are more dependent on your current state. Kimberly Baehman: Correct, yep. More environmental, yeah. Epigenetics. Britney Suttner: Okay. I feel like food allergies, even in you know, making sure we're keeping these separated here, but I feel like food allergies and sensitivities are both on the rise. Why do you think that is? Kimberly Baehman: Hundred percent. And there's a lot of reasons behind that, going back to like why the gut breaks down in the first place. when I mentioned like food proteins can cause some gut degradation and breakdown, our food is a science experiment out there. A lot of what we're eating is just like a chemical concoction plus food in it. So putting that into our bodies from, you know, even when we're pregnant. Plus when they're little, you know, like it's just the body doesn't know what half of those ingredients are. you know, we've got prescription medications that we are faced with antibiotics, like we were talking about earlier that wipe out all the good bacteria takes months to years to build up that again in the body. so I think we're on the rise because we have so many foreign things going into the body in utero. plus when we're children, plus as we go on and then you have that compounding effect. and like I I mentioned, you know, my little guy too. the more intervention we have, the more chances there are there's gonna be like a little bit of a weaker immune system or something that happens. Britney Suttner: Do you feel like everybody should get a gut test and a food sensitivity test and just understand what they're at on a like certain regular cadence and basis? Kimberly Baehman: Yeah, I you know, they're two of my favorite tests for what we do at nutritional healing. obviously, my personal health story, those really weigh on those two types of tests. But for anyone, when I mentioned like the gut is your first brain sometimes, I think that is a very important one to look at, no matter how good you're feeling. Sometimes we don't realize our full potential or how good we should feel. It's just kind of like this is my normal. I have a couple headaches a month, and it's like, well, no, you should have zero. Like, you could feel so much better. I think people could benefit from both. They work very synergistically together. Sports teams do food sensitivity testing just to make their athletes even better, more efficient, stronger, faster. I will caution and say, like with a food sensitivity test, you want to be in a state of readiness to change. You might not like your symptoms. But I want people to understand that, you know, change is always tough. It's temporary. It's not like I said, you're not married to it forever, but you do have to put in the work. So if you're going to invest in a food sensitivity test, be ready to do so. If someone's, you know, going around and maybe not eating whole foods already, they're more fast food on the go, they're gonna struggle a bit more with a food sensitivity test because that's a big overhaul. Because you don't with processed foods and eating on the go. Again, those ingredient lists are not just like beef. You know, it's like beef plus like twenty other things in that burger you're eating. And that's like the aha moment that my clients see, like, that you're right. Like I didn't test on all these chemicals and then you see body doesn't even know what those are. So you're gonna start to feel better. Britney Suttner: Yeah. So let's say that somebody gets this testing done and they come back with like six different things on their sensitivity testing. What what does this look like going forward? Are they they're they're gonna hit pause on eating those because it could be creating some inflammation in their body by eating those, but how long? And how are you when do you know that you can reintroduce these foods or at least try to? Kimberly Baehman: Yeah, so when you get your testing back, typically a food sensitivity test will say like this is a severe, a moderate, or a mild sensitivity, and that's showing for us in our clinic how your symptoms will basically pop up, you know, mild symptoms, more severe, or the reaction to it, how quickly. we avoid anything that's severe or moderate for six months, anything that's mild for three months because this is looking at an immune response. And your white blood cells in the body recycle every 90 days. So we give that a 90-day cycle to basically give your body a timeout, quit pouring gasoline on the fire with these foods. and then eventually we slowly reintroduce them. And it's a slow and steady process. It's not like once that day comes, all six of those foods that you were sensitive to are going to be on your plate that day. Because what if you do have a reaction still? you won't know which one it is. So it's like s low and steady, one at a time. Then you wait a couple days and then you can bring back back the next one. and we really want you to understand your body again because right now if you haven't tested, you don't know what end is up. You don't know if it's like actually let's say chicken that you're eating or is it the spices you're putting on the chicken you've got symptoms all over the place. Then when you get to a state of healing, when you have it, you'll probably feel the symptom right away because you've gotten your body healed versus like it pops up four days later and you're just overburdened. Britney Suttner: Hmm. That is helpful. I like having those timelines. You know, that help that helps Kimberly Baehman: Yeah. Britney Suttner: people understand and be able to wrap their head around what this journey could look like. Cause like you said, if you're gonna step into this, which I think a lot of people should if they're especially if they're having symptoms, you need to be prepared to do something about it, which is oftentimes hard in our society and our culture. What would be some of the most common food sensitivities you're seeing? Because I think of a lot of the big the big categories, right? Like gluten and dairy and eggs and when you're looking at doing something like whole 30 or something more kind of concrete, these are always these big like red flag items. And so are these oftentimes coming up on food sensitivity tests? How should people handle those? Kimberly Baehman: Yeah, I think, you know, I always want to tell people if you're not seeing results, it's not for lack of effort because a lot of the things we read about or hear about online are, you know, give up gluten, give up dairy, cut out sugar. It's always like getting rid of something, which it's not terrible advice, but it might not be your advice that you need. and so I want to encourage people to take a step back and that's why testing is so important. Those items can basically lead the way to a leaky gut and food sensitivity because they just are harder on the body in general. But some of the common things we see are the items people are trying to eat to be healthy. So it's like your fruits and your veggies, nuts and seeds, healthy oils like an avo avocado oil or olive. and then sometimes it's like black pepper where people are like, what? I would have never guessed to take that out of my diet. And the type of testing we look at too When you really want to get nerdy about it, it looks at chemicals and additives. Not that a lot of us who are trying to be healthier are consuming those, but our body products have those in them. And so when I did this testing years ago, I found, you know, my deodorant, my shampoo, my conditioner, my tablets that I was using to wash my dishes had ingredients in it. So all of my dishes are then coated in something that I'm sensitive to. And the light at the end of the tunnels, there's always an alternative out there and that's where we come into the picture and I help people try to find those for the time being. Even if it's a healthy food or a healthy product, it's just not healthy for your body right now. Britney Suttner: Okay, so stick sticking on that for a second, does the sensitivity test show things beyond food? Products? okay. So tell us Kimberly Baehman: Yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Britney Suttner: give us a really brief overview of the testing process, what someone would expect, and then what is overview of what it's showing. Kimberly Baehman: Yeah, so I love this test. I've I've always said, like, if you want to walk to your goal or run there, this is gonna help you run to your goal. it's a whole blood draw, and we're looking at your immune system's response to over 250 foods, and then you've got your food dyes, your food additives and chemicals and preservatives. So it's very eye-opening. Some of the most common things, and I know they keep coming out with stuff like that, but we try to stay ahead of that. but you're going to see any of those additional items or even to the point of glyphosate, you know, things that are sprayed on your food getting tested for that to see, you know, I've thought about eating organic. I don't know, you know, what where's my organic dollars? Where are they going be worth it? I mean, it might not be the produce you're eating, it's like what's on it. So it's just it's so eye opening to have that where you think, gosh, I think I'm so sensitive to this food. And here it was all these other things in in your life. And that's empowering to find out that information. Britney Suttner: Yeah, and I've it th it is empowering and I'm so glad that we have something like a test like that because when you're talking about somebody who's trying to eat healthy, it's somebody who is putting in a effort of trying to lead a healthy lifestyle, but unbeknownst to them, those almonds are creating havoc in their system and they would have no idea thinking that they are a healthy choice. So that's I feel like giving people a lot of hope of, there's there's a test that can give me the data, right? Just give me data so I can control things better and then working with someone like you to help understand what the path forward would look like. Kimberly Baehman: Yes. Britney Suttner: Well, it's not every day that I have a nutritionist sitting in front of me. And so I ask this next next question not to tell other people what to do or to create shame or judgment around what they are doing. But I would just love to know what your personal non-negotiab or anything else in your life. Kimberly Baehman: Yeah, so I, you know, a couple that stick out for me because I do like to have an open mind. And over the years people will laugh when they see me in the community. Don't look at what I'm eating. Don't judge me. You must think I'm blah blah blah blah. And I'm like, hey, if you're not actively coming in, like I have no place to judge that. I would have advice if you want it. personally, and even my staff and I, we all have different non-negotiables of things like we'll laugh with each other. But for me, I do gluten free. I just don't I just don't think it's it's got a place for me. I I prefer distilled water with added trace minerals. I think that's a big deal. you know, some people go dairy free. I don't. I I I'm still in Wisconsin. I still love cheese cheese. So that's where it's like we all have our thing, right? Like everyone's like, I could never give that up or I really like that. And I go, Hey, I get it. I get it, but there's things for me that like Those items don't have a voice, they're not calling me. So th those would be some of the biggest things for me. And try to eat as whole food as possible when you can, especially like the things you do consistently every day. Try to make them the best quality because you're always gonna have an opportunity for some sort of beverage or treat or something that's gonna pop up for you. Britney Suttner: Mm-hmm. That's great. Well, before we end this episode, I would love to just brag on a little bit of the things that you offer at nutritional healing and learn more about them. So first of all, you offer a one hour consult, is that right? Kimberly Baehman: Yes, we've always offered a one hour free consultation since we began the company. Mm-hmm. Britney Suttner: An hour is a long time. I feel like usually it's like 10 minutes. Well, no. Did you guys hear that? A whole hour consultation. So if any of this is intriguing you and you just have more questions, give Kim a call. But then you also have a couple of classes. So if someone wants to continue to learn more about this topic specifically, you do have food sensitivity and gut health classes, as well Kimberly Baehman: Yes. Britney Suttner: as a monthly cooking class. So can you just tell us a little bit about both of these options? Kimberly Baehman: Yeah, there's a lot of ways you can learn a little bit more about us. And classes are like the least pressure. You know, you're in a group setting. the food sensitivity class and gut health class is our most popular, which is why we've just kept it over the years. We do it every other month. you meet in a group setting, and my office manager Brooke and I teach that. we go over a lot of the things we touched on today, but we deep dive a little bit more into the science. And then at the end, because it is a small group, you can ask your personal questions. You can ask these overarching questions about nutrition. well, why, why don't, you know, my doctors, why aren't they looking at this? And we really go into that and how it works for their specific lifestyle. the monthly cooking classes, I'm at every single one of those. It is a lot of fun. It's healthy, Chef Shell and I. We've been together for years partnering up. And we have three recipes that she features based off seasonal eating. So it's going to be more nutritious, more cost effective, readily available out there, and she'll create like an appetizer, a main dish, like a dessert. And then I am the mastermind behind the mocktails. So I have a lot of fun with it. I stress myself out every month doing it because I just wanna make everyone l enjoy their time. But I find a mocktail that matches the month or the season or something that's going on, but is also better for you, for those who just are bored with w their water or, you know, they're trying to not drink alcohol. we have a blast and we've been doing this for years. Britney Suttner: That sounds amazing. Yep. I think I need Kimberly Baehman: Ha ha Britney Suttner: to get one of those on my schedule. And so both of these are in person classes, correct? Kimberly Baehman: Correct. Yes, everything's in person. We highly recommend calling or emailing to register for those just because there is limited seating, but we always have another one coming up. Britney Suttner: That's super cool. I love that. These are both these are all so great. Well, I will Kimberly Baehman: Thank you. Britney Suttner: link to all of all things Kim in the show notes, her website, social medias, all that jazz. If you guys want to contact her again, she has that consult. She is located in Appleton, Wisconsin, for our listeners that are all over the state or beyond and just want to know where she is stationed out of. So we do have one more episode coming up with Kim. I'm really excited for this one too. We're going to be talking about how Hard it is, honestly, to feed our children in these days in this this age. and so we're gonna get some real life tips from Kim as not only a mom, but also a nutritionist in just helping us understand how we can like ditch some of this guilt. But when we're trying to help our family eat healthy, how can we do that in a more manageable way? So we are excited to come back with one more episode next.