After 2 babies, stuck in the cycle of trial and error with various diet methods including vegan, Optavia, cutting carbs, whole30, paleo, low calories, Ashley wanted a more sustainable approach to be fit and healthy, inside and out. Read on to hear her story and what changes she made to finally get her dream body and health.
This is my lovely client Ashely Foulk, she came to me wanting to drop mid-section fat, but she got a whole lot more than she expected.
To start off, we had to get Ashley eating the right foods, in the proper combinations and macronutrient balance for her needs.
She was always trying to eat lower calorie to lose weight but with the other symptoms it was clear her body needed more nutrients.
We removed a few foods that were contributing to bloating, gas, and inflammation while increasing the amount of food in the proper macro balance.
In her first 4 months we helped her go from daily gas, bloating, constipation, digestive irregularity, migraines, eczema, low energy, to…
- Migraines have reduced frequency
- Eczema is gone
- Bloating gone
- Dropped 6lbs and 12 inches
All while eating 1000 calories more per DAY
We often don’t realize when we embark on a fat loss journey that the whole body is interconnected. When one system is struggling, it impacts another.
For example if you notice you have digestive issues, it’s probably related to why you have migraines or anxiety, or skin issues.
Our gut microbiome can become imbalanced with bacteria overgrowths, parasites, toxin overload, or candida, just to name a few. When we have an imbalance in the gut, it creates a situation called “leaky gut” or intestinal permeability where toxins can get through to the blood stream and cross the blood-brain barrier and creates things like migraines, brain fog, anxiety, or other mood issues.
When toxins that should not get through the gut lining do get through, we also see them coming out the skin and the skin acts like an “emergency exit” for these toxins where we see different issues like eczema, acne, hives, psoriasis, etc.
When the gut is imbalanced, we have a problem digesting our food, absorbing and assimilating nutrients we eat. When this happens, the nutrients we consume can’t get to our cells to power our body (our mitochondria are the power supply inside the cell). This would be like trying to turn on a hose to water your garden but having a kink in the hose.. You might get some water but if you fixed that kink, you’d get a lot more.
So this is what was going on with Ashley.
We had to fix the gut inflammation in order to bring her energy back up, which in turn got rid of her headaches and migraines, eczema, and got her sleeping like a baby.
The body isn’t a simple machine – it’s all connected! To think weight loss is a simple equation of of calories in, calories out is oversimplifying the body.
The picture you see in the middle is after bringing down initial inflammation and fixing her food choice, amounts, and macro balance. Once she had an uptick in energy we implemented workouts that would create lean body composition and she continued those from then on.
Then, we ran more functional lab testing to see if there were still some issues as she felt her gut health could still improve.
And sure enough, there was, we found gut imbalances including parasites, leaky gut, and gallstones. I created a protocol for Ashley with various supplement and functional nutrition healing modalities that helped her become regular every day, sleep great every night, and really fire up her energy.
This approach is about supporting the body to allow it to heal. With a traditional western medicine approach you will often be told you either have a disease and can get medication or you are “fine.” But the reality is the body isn’t all or nothing.
With the functional health model we use in our Fit + Functional Framework, we look at the body systems on more of a continuum of optimal to suboptimal to dysfunctional. We use functional lab testing (various gut and hormone tests, most of which you can do at home) and analyze these to find those areas of dysfunction, then create a supportive protocol to bring those systems back to optimal.
Through healing her body inside and out, eating macro-balance meals with a periodized nutrition approach, and the right lean body sculpting workouts, she had the recipe for success.
Tune in to hear the 3 big changes that made all the difference for Ashley dropping weight and reducing inflammation.
If you are interested in seeing if our Fit + Functional Framework can work for you, book a free consultation here.
