For You!

• FREE customizable "Nutrition Letter" to help communicate your family's dietary needs and wants during caregiving to anyone who wants to help with a meal

• Submit your "Words I Wish to Hear"

• Receive a weekly hug from the Cozy Caregiver Cafe Newsletter!

Video Description

Nourishing Bodies and Souls: Intuitive Eating and Self-Care for Caregivers with Non-Diet Dietician Katy Harvey

Hello Cozy Caregiver Cafe Family!

In this engaging episode of the Cozy Caregiver Cafe, host Allison is joined by Katy Harvey, a Non-Diet Dietitian and Intuitive Eating Coach. 

Together they explore challenges caregivers face with eating habits during stressful times and discuss the body's natural response to stress, such as overeating or loss of appetite. Katy emphasizes the importance of understanding one's hunger cues and the emotional needs behind food cravings.

This episode also cover the significance of sleep, water intake, and mindful eating in managing health while caregiving. The conversation also dives into how menopause affects women's health and the natural changes that occur. 

Katy shares insights into how to handle generous food donations from loved ones during caregiving. Ultimately, Katy's advice centers on rebuilding trust with one’s body and discovering sustainable self-care practices.

To learn more about Katy, please check out her podcast, The Rebuilding Trust With Your Body Podcast, or on Instagram (@katyharvey.rd)!

Love,

Allison

Thank You For Listening!

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, follow on Instagram, and like the Cozy Caregiver Cafe on Facebook!

If you have any general questions or comments for the show, click here.

If you'd like to advertise on the Cozy Caregiver Cafe Podcast, click here.

Video Transcript

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Cozy Caregiver Cafe. It's so wonderful to be here with you. It's Allison. And today we have, I'm not going to steal her title, but we have someone Cozy Caregiver Cafe that I'm so excited to talk to not only as a person, but as an expert. So Katie, welcome to the Cozy Caregiver Cafe.

Thank you. Thank you. I can't wait for this. Katie, why don't you just start us off by telling us a little bit about yourself. I didn't want to steal your titles, even though I love them. So I'd love for you to share them and just share a little bit about what lights you up. Of course. Yeah. Like, don't even get me started.

Here we go. Okay. So I'm Katie Harvey and I am a non diet dietitian and an intuitive eating coach. And essentially what I do, what I help people with is ditching dieting. And learning how to trust themselves and to trust their bodies and to have peace with food. And I do that through the intuitive eating framework.

Okay. Oh my gosh. I'm so excited that you're here. Okay. So here, let's start when people are in caregiving and I'm going to say you're caring for a little one. Like you have a young child, you're caring for a parent and I'm just, I'm going to ask you as an expert. So I'm sorry. I hope I'm not putting you on the spot, but why is it?

In the most stressful times of our life that we either just want to overeat and we find food such a comfort or we don't want to eat at all. Like we're not nourishing ourselves. It feels like, and I've been both a mama and a caregiver. I'm a two time cancer caregiver to my parents. Um, I can tell you during caregiving, For my parents, my weight was just like yo yoing and it was not good.

So why is it just to start this off? Cause I'm assuming that this is how most people feel and maybe I'm wrong. And if I am, please tell me you're totally right. That's that's like the body's normal response to stress is we tend to kind of go one of two ways is like wanting to just eat all the food and comfort ourselves with food.

Or like it'll just zap your appetite and you don't want to eat at all. And some people can kind of oscillate between both, but it, it's essentially what happens when we're in fight or flight mode. And then also when we're looking for ways to cope. And the thing with food is that it works. Like it gives us that.

Kind of instant gratification. It gives us some degree of pleasure. It might help us just have a moment where we can kind of disconnect from everything else or soothe ourselves or distract ourselves. And because our brain realizes, oh, that worked, we're more apt to keep doing it. Even if there's also like a negative outcome of eating when we're not hungry or more than what we're hungry for.

So, you know, it makes sense when we kind of look at it through that lens. Oh my gosh. Okay. I love the way that you describe why this happens, because what you're saying is that it's essentially not a person's fault, right? That this is their, that this is their, it doesn't mean you don't have willpower, or your health isn't important to you or any of that.

No. It's just, it turns out you're normal. If you've had a good experience. So, so I love that you said it's connected to fight or flight. And if we all could just write, get our parasympathetic nervous system in the state, it's supposed to be life would be great. But what, and I'm, I'm, again, I'm assuming, but please you're the expert.

So tell me, it seems like sometimes being really hungrier than normal can, can be. an indication, right? If we're not aware that we are in that fight or flight, we're like, yeah, it's stressful, but I got it. I can handle this. I'm on top of this, but I'm also just going to shove this whole plate of cookies into my mouth every night, right?

Like, is, is it, is it right to think that it's an indication? So if there are people listening and I've definitely been them, it's been like, no, I'm not stressed, you know, but I'm engaging in this behavior that I normally wouldn't do that. Maybe my body's trying to tell me something. Absolutely. And I, I really love the way of looking at it like that, that if we can set the shame and the judgment aside that we tend to have.

Towards ourselves when we will, you know, eat something that we feel like we shouldn't have, or if we eat too much, it's so easy to just go into that thought pattern of beating yourself up. Like I shouldn't have done that. I have no willpower. What am I going to do to fix this? How do I make up for it? If instead we look at that, like, okay, this is interesting.

This is fascinating. What does this tell me? It can be an indicator that you Are stressed out more than you realize or that you're having unmet needs outside of food and that can lead us towards actually acknowledging and addressing those needs in a way that's not harmful or dysfunctional or, you know, working against us in any way.

Oh, my gosh. Okay. I just love the way you talk about this. I love the way you talk about this. And I can tell you're really knowledgeable and very good at your job. So thank you for that. And so here's my question. So say that I'll use myself as an example. I'm caring for my mom and I just feel this urge to eat the plate of cookies, right?

That's downstairs. And so ideally what I think about myself, because I know that as a human, I have hunger needs what I would do, but please tell me if there's a better way to do this, I would want to eat actually something healthy to see if it's in fact hunger, you know, that will, can be satiated by something that I eat, or if it's the emotional hunger, you know, if I'm still like really desiring the plate of cookies after I eat, you know, a yogurt or, you know, a piece of fruit or a salad or something, then it's not that I'm actually hungry.

It's that something else is going on inside of me. Is that, so this is, this is just sort of the way I think about it, but it could be completely screwed up. So please write me if I'm wrong and tell me, you know, how we can think about sort of of testing ourselves. Are we actually hungry because it's lunchtime and you've been working hard?

Or is this something greater? Yeah, so I, I think it's great that you're demonstrating the difference here between physical hunger, like your body's need for fuel, for energy versus emotional hunger, which sometimes those two things co occur at the same time. And that can be really tricky, but yeah, if we can slow down and just take a minute to check in with ourselves and to ask, am I hungry before we start eating the thing?

And if the answer is yes. Then to ask yourself, okay, what am I hungry for? Like slowing yourself down? Like, do I really want the cookies? Or is that just the impulse for the quick gratification? Like, is a cookie genuinely what you want? What is going to satisfy you and hit the spot? And if yes, okay, cool.

There's nothing inherently wrong with cookies. But then to ask also, what does my body need? Is that going to give me what I need? Because if it's snack time, okay, yeah. Maybe a cookie might do the trick. But if it's lunch time, you're probably going to need something besides just a cookie to be like, fueled and sustained.

And so, we might think about, okay, what else do I have available that I could have with the cookie? Could I have a salad or a sandwich and the cookie? Or, um, If it's a snack time, maybe you're like, okay, could I have a glass of milk or some yogurt for some protein? So it gives me a little bit more satiety.

So we're not denying or depriving ourselves what we want. But we are double checking, like, is this what my body truly wants and needs? And is it going to make me feel good? And then if, if at the very beginning of that you asked yourself, am I hungry? And the answer was no, I'm not hungry. I just want to eat the cookies.

That's when I would get curious about. The emotions. What am I feeling emotionally? Why do I want the cookies? What am I hoping these cookies are going to do for me? If I don't eat the cookies, how am I going to feel? And to try to explore that, to see if you can get in touch with your emotional needs. And if at the end of the day, you still choose to eat the cookies.

You're like, no, this is emotional a million percent. And I'm still going to eat them. Okay, fine. At least you've done it with awareness and hopefully you can stay present and connected with your body And stop when you're satisfied without overeating and making yourself feel stuffed and miserable. Oh my gosh, such sage advice.

And what I'm, what I'm wondering is like, I want to break this down even more. When you say ask yourself, Am I hungry? What am I hungry for? I mean, is this like, close your eyes and take five breaths? Like if, can you break it down for me to the granular level of what people should do? Yeah, that's a good point.

Cause I think some people don't know when they're hungry or they're Yeah. They're just like, I don't know how to figure that out because sometimes we think hunger and we just associate, okay, that must mean my stomach is growling. For most of us, if it gets to the point that your stomach is growling, that's a pretty extreme hunger.

And you probably missed some of the more subtle signs leading up to that. And we can, if you can envision. Uh, uh, like a line on a piece of paper, kind of like a ruler, and it has zero to ten, and there's all the numbers in between. And if the number zero represents the most starving and ravenous and hungry you could possibly be, like you would chew off your own arm, you probably feel sick because you're so hungry, and ten is the exact opposite of that.

You are so stuffed you probably feel sick. Five is completely neutral. You're neither hungry nor full. Our hunger and fullness are on this continuum. It's not like a light switch where you're just on or off, hungry or full. There's levels and degrees of hunger and fullness along the way. And this can be a great tool.

We call it the hunger fullness scale. And it can be a great tool for connecting with those nuances and being able to gauge for yourself where you're at on that continuum and therefore how hungry you are, how much food you might need. So when it comes to checking in with your body, it can be closing your eyes.

In fact, in the beginning of practicing that skill, I think that's great because it allows you to like, kind of tune out some of the other stimulus around us and just to do kind of a body scan, like check in with your head and like your mouth and your throat and your chest and your stomach. Just kind of scan through your body to see what it's telling you.

Sometimes hunger does show up in our stomach for sure. It can be growling or maybe like an emptiness or like sort of a desire or kind of a gnawing in your stomach. Some people experience hunger more in their throat or even in their mouth. Sometimes hunger starts to show up more mentally before it's physical.

We might start thinking about food or something sounds good. And maybe we're having trouble concentrating, our focus is diminishing, or we're a little bit tired. So if we can start to realize how does hunger show up for us in our bodies, then we know what to look for before we've hit the point of like, I'm hangry and I'm just going to eat the first thing I can get my hands on.

Right. Oh my gosh. Okay. So that's wonderful. And one, I have so many questions. I'm so excited to be talking to you for caregivers. Um, so, If somebody has a craving for salt or somebody has a craving for sugar, does that mean different things? Like it feels like sometimes if people have cravings, they want something salty or sweet.

I'm curious. Is that like, what, why is that just how we are? You ask the best questions, by the way, I literally right before this, I just had this conversation with a client that So, okay. To kind of preface it. Some people just tend to lean more one way or the other. Like for me, if I'm going to crave something, it's usually something sweet.

Whereas my husband is a salty, savory guy all the way. So some people are just kind of wired a little bit more one way than the other, but also sometimes the foods we're craving have symbolism and as cheesy as this sounds, some of you are probably going to roll your eyes, but bear with me. Sometimes when we're craving something sweet, Metaphorically, we are craving more sweetness in our life.

Or maybe that sweet thing is like, let's say you're craving ice cream. You could think about, okay, what else do I associate with that? Is there something about the smoothness or the creaminess that's comforting? Maybe you need comfort. Or maybe you associate ice cream with happy times or celebration or joy or fun.

And that's what you're yearning for. With salty food or crunchy food, sometimes that's like, Oh, I'm like angry or frustrated or stressed out. So, you know, to ask yourself, are you feeling any of those things? Are you feeling salty or bitter about something? And it can give you clues as to what you're actually feeling or needing separate from the food.

Wow. Okay. That was so helpful and, um, really spot on too, just personally for me. So I'm sure for everyone here at the Cozy Caregiver Cafe, there was a takeaway there. Um, okay. So we've talked about eating too much or the urge to eat too much. Now, the opposite. One of the things that comes up with so many clients and different caregivers that I either am working with now or have worked with throughout the years is Allison, I know I'm supposed to take care of myself.

I know I'm supposed to be eating well But when I get done making a meal for my loved one, which is a certain diet, you know Elements and then making a meal for my child who doesn't like this and only likes this. I literally Don't have any energy or desire to make any sort of food for myself So I sit down and I eat, you know popcorn or i'll eat what my child doesn't eat just So like, how, how can I actually have a healthy meal when I'm literally, you know, a short order cook for all these members of my family?

And of course, I'd love to just make myself my favorite meal every night, but I don't have that time. I don't have that luxury. Like, how would you respond to that, Katie? I mean, first of all, it's really valid and makes total sense that there's only so much of you to go around, you know, and how I might think about that is like very strategically because I don't like cooking, which is so funny because most dietitians love cooking.

Like I don't, I hate cooking. Like I do not want to spend any more time than necessary in the kitchen. And so I'm all about like, let's make this quick and easy. So maybe when you're cooking for. your loved one or your kids. Is there something they're having that you could utilize for yourself? Ideally, when we're making food for our kids, we're actually eating the same meal and we're not short order of cooking.

It's hard though. I always said before I became a parent, you know, I'm never going to let my kids be picky. They're going to eat what we eat. And now I totally understand how people get backed into that corner where it's like, Oh, you want some chicken nuggets and you want them served on a red plate. Here you go.

But the more you can, like, eat the same meal, it actually helps them with their variety of food, even if they balk at a lot of the things over time. They'll get better about it, but then it becomes easier to feed yourself because you're not making all these separate meals. So, to the extent possible. That you can sit down and eat that or utilize the components of those meals to build yourself something great.

And then maybe there needs to be a backup plan. Maybe you need to have things on hand that you're going to throw that frozen meal that like, Healthy choice, whatever in the microwave or a frozen burrito, or you're going to put something in the air fryer for yourself. Great, or buy, get the rotisserie chicken and those bagged salad kits that like come with all the toppings and shake it up and there's your meal.

So it doesn't have to be fancy in order for you to be nourished. And I think having some of those quick go to options on hand is really important. So that things, it can just be as streamlined as possible. Yeah.

Okay, great. It's wonderful. Thank you. And so, um, another sort of issue that comes up is that caregivers may not have the opportunity to nurture their entire health. They were nearly low. And though as a result, caregivers might develop into develop health issues. Um, and so, uh, they always include personal stories again about my, I when we were.

Just this time where I would write on the brain of a child with STDs. I thankfully didn't. But, I remember when I went to the protest that year, for, uh, for the protest, where I felt such extreme, sort of shame and guilt, and I was just feeling awful. That. So, I had done something wrong, and as a result, it was, you know, manifested in this way.

And so, if anybody who's hearing this is going through, or you have some sort of diagnosis related to nutrition, Um, I'm wondering if you can just share with me the mindset or the first steps for what to do next, because we know that, okay, we should eat healthier, we should eat more of this, be more active, but sometimes we just feel so awful, it's really hard to do anything.

Well, yeah. And, and especially if you're in a caregiving role, then sometimes it's like, where's the time to take care of yourself, to take care of yourself or the energy. And, and we know that stress can wreak havoc on our bodies and our immune systems. And it doesn't do us any good usually when it comes to, you know, like, uh, blood pressure, cholesterol, stuff like that, blood sugar.

And what I see a lot of women doing is grasping at You know, diets and quick fixes, especially if they have kind of a health scare themselves. They're like, okay, I got to like buckle down. I, and I'm going to like punish myself, or I'm going to just like go all in with intermittent fasting or keto. And I've got to get myself to the gym.

And, and the intent behind that is usually to try and Help ourselves, but so often it backfires because not sustainable and in a lot of ways, dieting and restrictive eating it. It might temporarily look like it's improving things like your blood sugar or your cholesterol levels, but when the inevitable backlash occurs.

That actually damages your health more than, than it does good. And so, in the long run, a lot of times things look worse, not better, but it's deceiving because things look worse initially. I mean, it's like, same thing with weight. Like, you might initially lose weight, but usually if there's any type of restricting and dieting going on, that weight will get regained, plus some.

So, instead of, of doing these kind of extreme, not sustainable things, What I recommend is looking at ways to connect with your body, to take care of your body in ways that are sustainable. And a lot of these things, they're just not the sexy, exciting things. It's like, are you getting enough sleep? Are you drinking enough water?

Are you eating enough protein? Are you having some fruits and vegetables? It's not about like having to be hyper specific on your macros or you can't ever have carbs or sugar again and and all of that. That is more I think it's alluring because it's kind of exciting, it's just not very effective. So it's, I bring people back to like, what are the ways you can genuinely take care of your body and things that you can do for the long haul?

Mm. Okay. And when it comes to, and I love that you mentioned tooth elements, which are very hard to come by in a caregiver schedule, which are sleep and then sometimes water. Do you mind just sharing how sleep and water affects. Our body, like why does sleep affect? I mean, I'm assuming it does, but how, like what it actually means, right?

Because people say, get more sleep, get more sleep. And it's like, yes, I should get more sleep. But I'm wondering if you can dive a little deeper and explain why, why sleep is actually important. As a dietitian, one of the very first things I'm always assessing with a client is what is their sleep looking like.

And, and it's for two reasons, really. It's because if we're not getting enough sleep, like total hours, or if the sleep we're getting is not good quality. Quality sleep, then it's going to mess with our metabolism, our appetite, uh, it's going to mess with like your cortisol levels, which can impact your blood sugar and food cravings and all this stuff, but also just the logistics of it.

If your sleep is really jacked up and all over the place, then you're eating is going to be all over the place too. And our bodies don't really like that. Our bodies like consistency. All of the research on sleep shows that, that we tend to do better with it. If we're going to bed and getting up around the same times each day, because our sleep is part of our circadian rhythm.

It's why as humans, we're wired to be asleep when it's dark outside and awake when it's light outside. Now, of course, some of us are a bit more. Night owls than others, but we're not nocturnal as a species and so our circadian rhythm in our biological clock could determine the way that the body most naturally wants to be asleep and awake and our appetite signals are tied in with that as well.

And so we need to make sure that we're sleeping enough because it's. It's going to connect with our eating, but also with sleep and probably more importantly is just the impact that sleep has on our health overall, that if we're not sleeping enough, and if our sleep is not good quality, we're at higher risk for pretty much any health condition you could name.

Um, and. One good example of this, there's a study where they took a group of otherwise healthy men, like they ruled out all this other medical stuff, and they sleep deprived them to four hours for one night of sleep, and every single one of them showed signs of insulin resistance the next day, which means that their blood sugar was higher.

Imagine if we're like living that way, you know? Yeah, it's wild, and so sleep is one of those things that It can be really hard when we're stressed out. Sometimes it makes it harder to sleep, or sometimes we want to sleep all the time. I also see this a lot with moms in particular, especially if their kids are young.

And I've seen it called online, revenge bedtime procrastination, which is the thing that we all do. Been there, done that. I absolutely know what that is. You're like, I know where you're going with this. Yeah. When the, when the kids finally go to bed, you have your me time. And so you'll stay up later than you ought to, because it's that period when some, everybody finally leaves you alone.

And then what I see a lot with people is that's when they'll start eating And like, here comes the snacks. It's like their own little party that they're having for themselves, even if they're not hungry. And then they're exhausted the next day. So getting ourselves to bed on time and talking to our doctors, if we're having issues with sleep, because there's a lot of things that can cause disturbances in our sleep.

And sometimes it needs medical intervention and there's a lot that can be done to help with that where you're not walking around exhausted all the time. So. Okay. Revenge bedtime. That's hilarious. Yes. Yeah. Um, so, okay, so. We've talked about sleep. Now I do want to ask about water, but before I go there, I'm hoping we can talk about the, the best friend of lack of sleep, which of course is caffeine.

So what, what does caffeine do to the body? I mean, so many of us charge our days through a coffee of some type. And so when is it great and helpful and fun and exciting? And when is it actually hurting us and how do we know? Yeah, for sure. And. Um, it's easy to see where if we're exhausted and we're stressed out and we're depleted that we want to maybe use the caffeine as kind of a pick me up.

And um, you know, I'm even thinking back to when I was, um, caregiving for my mom and she's in the hospital. It's like, sometimes you just gotta like take a break and like go get the cup of coffee and it's like, you know, just a way to perk yourself up a little bit or give yourself a break. So caffeine, people tend to reach for it when they want more energy.

The thing with it is Actual energy for our body comes from two things. It would be sleep and food, specifically the calories in food. That's what a calorie is. It's energy for the body. And then sleep, of course, is a different type of energy. So those are, are the two sources of energy. Caffeine is not energy.

It's a stimulant. It's fake energy. So if you find yourself relying on a lot of caffeine or more caffeine than usual, it's worth asking yourself why, what's going on here? There is nothing wrong with having some caffeine and enjoying coffee. I mean, I enjoy coffee just as much as the next person. And so, you know, within reason, it's fine.

I do recommend having a cutoff point for yourself so it's not disrupting your sleep. So, like, for me and for my body, if I drink coffee past about 12 o'clock noon, It's it might disrupt my sleep that night. So I kind of know. Okay, we're not gonna be doing afternoon lattes and stuff like that. Or if I do, it's going to be decaf.

Now some people can get away with it a little bit later, but maybe doing that experiment and knowing yourself like what is your caffeine curfew need to be. And then the other thing is, if you're just like, drinking nothing but caffeine all day long, are you drinking enough water? So these, these two things are intertwined, you know, and caffeine does contribute to hydration.

Like it is giving our body fluid, but we also need just regular water too, in order to be well hydrated. So do you think that I and I always just like to try to be as granular as possible here? Do you think it's good to try to do a one to one ratio if you have one cup of coffee? Make sure you have one cup of water before you have another cup of coffee I I don't know.

I'm just trying to think is there a way to To measure that, because I know that I can, I can see my day through coffee cups. And if I, if I try to tag water onto that, maybe I'll drink more, but I don't know what that ratio should be. So, yeah, there, there doesn't like in terms of science and research, there's no like specific ratio that would be like an evidence based thing to follow.

But, uh, if that's a system that works well for somebody. Yeah. Totally. It's like, okay, bribe yourself for your next cup of coffee by drinking that water. Let's get that water in, you know, and that could be a great strategy. And one thing people are always like, well, how much water, how many ounces do I need per day?

Do I need to drink a gallon? Or there's a popular diet that calls for that. And that's, there is such thing as too much water. Let's just put it that way. Uh, or the thing it's like, you need to like drink your body weight in ounces of water. That's also nonsense. The best way, this is kind of gross, but the best way to know how much you need is the color of your urine.

Like, it should be a pale yellow. If it's dark, you need more fluid. If it's completely clear, like water, you're over hydrating. So, keep yourself somewhere in between. And your thirst is a good indicator. Like, we can trust our thirst just like we can trust our hunger if we're connected to our bodies. So this, I feel like this is a really apt conversation for me at this point in my life, because thankfully our almost three year old son is potty trained, but I'm a really at the point where I'm trying to figure out if the rest of my life, I'll just be stepping in little puddles in the bathroom, or if there's, I have two boys, I've got an eight year old and a five year old so far.

The answer is yes. Like. I just need better slippers, you know, and good cleaning. Okay, so, um, we've talked about water. We've talked about caffeine. I did have another question and I'm glad you talked about the color of urine, because I actually, I want to go there if that's okay and go even deeper. If you know what I mean, um, one of my, my.

focuses because my mom had colorectal cancer is just thinking about ways, particularly because it seems like the younger demographic is seeing a higher incidence of this type of cancer, like ways that we can be more in tune with how our body tells us that it may be unwell. And you've given us great suggestions about eating and drinking.

We've talked about hydration and the color of your urine. Um, and we also know, and I, I don't know if, if you're familiar with colorectal cancer in general, but we know that symptoms typically present through like loose stools or diarrhea, and they can last that can last sort of for a year or years. And people don't, They're embarrassed and they don't know that it's something that needs to be, um, dealt with.

And so, or it needs to be at least treated. And so I'm not saying for anyone listening that if this is you, if I'm describing, you know, your particular bowel movements, it means something is terribly wrong with you. But I did, I just did want to talk about like, when we think about our body and its elimination system, and we think about stress and we think about lack of sleep, like, Are there lessons that our bowel movements can teach us?

And if so, nobody wants to talk about it, but we should, right? Because it is, it's telling you something like your body is communicating a lot to you. And if there are changes in your bowel habits, then Again, that would be a time for curiosity, like what's going on here and, um, what's your body telling you.

And those are things that are important to bring to the attention of our doctors. Absolutely. And, and there's so much out there right now about like gut health, this and gut health, that, and there's all this like nonsense. I call it wellness. Woo. Like it's absolute nonsense, pseudoscience stuff that they're telling people to do.

And I think sometimes it pulls us away from. actually recognizing what's going on with our bodies. And so if you're not having normal bowel movements, or if you're worried that your habits aren't normal, or if they've changed, then yeah, like that's a signal from your body that needs to be listened to.

And What's also interesting with our guts is how tied it is to our emotions. A lot of the serotonin in our brain, which regulates our mood is produced in the gut. And so there is this like mind body connection. And when it comes to IBS, for example, irritable bowel syndrome, The research on that shows that for some people, stress management techniques like meditation can be just as effective, if not more so than actual medication, like that's how connected these things are.

And so, you know, sometimes it's our emotions showing up in our digestion, but yeah, we don't want to overlook. these signals and these signs from our bodies because it could signal something more serious and that's why we don't want to mess around with it. I'm so glad that you raised that. And so I want to share for, for anybody that, you know, may find a comfort in this that after, um, one of my caregiving phases, I was just having very, very serious stomach pain, like, like, physically very intense stomach pain, to the point where every maybe, you know, three or four months, I was presenting at the emergency room, like, not taking an ambulance there, but going, because I felt so sick, and nothing was wrong with me.

All the tests were run. Um, and now looking back on it, I think, I was just exhausted and I just like my my I don't I don't I don't even know exactly the I don't have the science of it I think I just I was craving and needed someone to take care of me in that kind of way And so for some reason through like I also, you know, there was I was stressed and in grief I think that it was like a It was essentially a way to get me to that, you know, because when you're in, I mean, and I know not everybody feels this way, but in a good experience, when you're in the comfort of physicians and a medical team, you do just feel like, okay, they've got me.

You know what I mean? So I, I really resonate with what you shared. And I, I would say that if there is anybody, and I'd, I'd love Katie for you to add like in, you know, add in what you think, but if there's anybody that is experiencing particularly like unusual stomach pains, and they might be recurrent, and you're going to see a medical provider, and there's not anything that seemingly wrong.

Um, That maybe like I, I did find that things like meditation and yoga and connecting to my spiritual self and self care was the thing that allowed those physical stomach pains to actually start reducing. So, yeah. Yeah. And I think that's, that's really beautiful advice. Um, especially once medical stuff has been ruled out and then I would just caution people against like supplements and stuff because Supplements are not regulated by the FDA, they, what's on, what it says on the bottle may or may not be what's actually in it, it may or may not be in that dose, it may or may not interact with medications you're taking, and So, you know, just a word of caution going down that path that's a little bit more holistic, you know, but yeah, things like meditation and yoga can be so beneficial and it ties back to our nervous system, you know, it's funny you mentioned your story there because I have a really similar one when my mom died last year.

I, I have never had like. IBS type stuff in my life ever and for a few months after she died, it was like almost every single day I, my, my gut was just a wreck and I think it was grief showing up in my body, you know, and it's weird how these things, how stress and grief can present as physical symptoms.

But again, it's like our body communicates to us. And so, um, I'm wondering, Katie, and thank you for sharing that. I'm so sorry about the loss of your mom. Um, I'm, I'm wondering, so if, if you, not even you, let's just say somebody is having like regular, you know, um, loose bowel movements and that's unusual and there is a lot of grief or stress.

So there's this emotional reason. Should that person sort of treat their diet? Like they have diarrhea, you know, and do the brat diet. I don't even know if people still do that, but do that. Or should it be like, okay, well, I don't, I don't just need to eat. Carbs, you know, because I'm feeling this way. I'm, I'm curious what, what should somebody do in that situation?

Yeah, I would lean more towards the brat diet, which is just like bland foods. If it's more of. Like an illness, like if you had the stomach flu or food poisoning, 100 percent that would be what we would have you do. For this type of thing that's more kind of ongoing, whether it's like just a clinical IBS diagnosis or if it's like stress or emotion related, I would actually say we want to look more at are there like certain foods that seem to be triggering it?

So sometimes spicy food will do it or caffeine could be a big trigger and to stay away from those but other than that to try to eat a pretty normal diet, but to sort of go off of what is your body seem to tolerate well, um, so, so the, the brat thing would be more of like if you're sick, but this would be more of just like kind of trial and error of what works for your body.

And curiosity, which I love. You've brought up so many times the curiosity of that. Um, okay. So here's my final substantive question. And it's something that, um, for years I've been thinking about. So I'm so glad I get to ask you. Okay. So in caregiving situations and, you know, choose your flavor of caregiving, oftentimes you have these beautiful souls in your life who love you.

Who want to do something for the family and don't know what to do, right? And so they're going to make something, they're going to bake something, they're going to drop off food, which is the most loving thing in the world. I mean, I totally get that people, so many people show their love through food. And so, um, I'm, I'm curious if you have ideas of how to be truly gracious and grateful for all that people are doing while also not only trying to maintain your own health, but recognizing that if you're caring for someone with a disease, like diet specific things or things like sugar, you know, or lots of fat may actually be harmful.

Like I'm curious if you have advice for how do you engage in that kind of conversation when people are just. outpouring their love to you, but maybe in a way that actually has a long time. Yeah. And food is love in so many ways, you know, and so I would say if people are just giving you something, receive it and thank them.

And. Receive the care and the compassion that they are demonstrating through that you do or do not have to eat the food when they're gone, you know, it's I know it might feel terrible like you're a bad human being if and wasteful if you, you know, put it in the trash or pass it on to someone else you're not I promise you it is okay like the gesture was the important part and it's okay to do what's right for you.

Now, what I, I do want to be careful there that, that we don't label the food as good and bad, because that usually trips us up, like that type of thinking actually makes us more likely to overeat the food, because when we've labeled it that way, in our mind, it's like, well, I shouldn't be eating this, and so if I'm going to eat some of it, I might as well eat it all, because I'm not going to be allowed to have it later, so, it's like, we don't want to, we don't want to have to categorize and judge it, like, it can just be It's just food, but also, you know, your body needs a variety of nutrients and food groups and nutrition and all of that.

And, and, you know, it's, it's probably not going to sustain you to just subsist on, um, you know, the, I'm thinking of just like all the baked goods that people love to bring by. When. When you're going through tough times and when it comes to the person you're, you're caretaking for to really lean on their medical team of like, do they need to have restrictions or modifications on their diet with the type of food or the texture of food, um, or not, because, you know, I'm especially thinking of a situation that's like palliative care.

Like, sometimes they're going to eat or not eat, and we kind of just have to let them do that. And, you know, especially if we're looking at end of life, people often want to, like, they worry so much about the nutrition, or they're not eating, or they need to drink this insurer, and if the person doesn't want to do that, like, that is okay.

It's, their nutrition at that point is not going to change the outcome. Now, if it's, you know, maybe we're dealing with some type of like, we're not end of life palliative, anything like that. We're dealing with some type of chronic condition or whatever. Again, I would lean on their medical team for that.

And if modifications need to be made and you're sort of in charge of kind of managing their food and their meals and stuff, then you can let them guide you on that. And that can be so tricky. So I'm, I would maybe even encourage asking for a referral and a consult with a dietitian. That specializes in whatever condition it is.

Cause they can really help like streamline and spell that out for you. And then I'm, I'm assuming that dietitian, which may work at the medical facility, can give you a PDF, which then you can either you or have someone mail this out, like email it out to anyone that's really interested, right? So then it's not too pushy.

It's coming from an expert. You get to like legitimately hide behind an expert, I'd say. We love you. Thank you for your food, but here, look, this is okay. Yeah. If people are asking it, like I said, if they're just bringing you something, accept it with graciousness. If they're asking you, Hey, what can we bring?

Ask for what you need and maybe even think about asking for non food things like, Hey, could you drop off like some paper towels or like, Hey, a door dash gift card would be amazing. Cause then we can just kind of do whatever works on that day or say, Hey, I don't need food and stuff, but if someone could mow my yard or pull the weeds.

I would be so grateful. So I think people, they want to do something. They want to help. They don't always know how. And so food is like, well, everybody has to eat. So here you go. But sometimes if you just speak what you need, even though that can be really uncomfortable, the other person is like a million percent.

Yes, I got it. I, you know, I will do that. And they'll take that and run with it. And that can be such a beautiful thing. Cause then it's that are like genuinely helpful in your life. Right, right. Okay. Okay. Last question. I do have one more. Okay, bring it on. Because I know that this is on the minds of so many people here at the Coast Guard University.

Okay, menopause and the transition to menopause, but I'm just curious for women that are pre menopause or in menopause, what, and, and, or, I, I mean, I haven't gone through it personally that I know of, but the, the, the concept is that our bodies are changing. Our needs are changing potentially. I'm just wondering.

I know it, you can't answer all of it, but how, how can we know that maybe our body's telling us something and that thing is that we're in pre menopause or post menopause? And then what do we do? Like, do we just continue to eat the way we normally would? Yeah, it's and this is such a hot topic right now.

It's kind of like gut health There's so much out there where there's a lot of like wellness woo marketing to women who are in perimenopause And so they're like preying on us for money in that way. Um My okay. So long story short my introduction to menopause stuff came like really early in my career I was working on working at a cancer center, um, and doing breast cancer research and working with people who, um, were either at high risk for breast cancer or who were breast cancer survivors.

And with the survivors, a lot of times their treatment put them artificially through menopause, like they had a hysterectomy and you know, they'd been through all of this stuff. And so they like overnight went through menopause. And so I, I saw very quickly a lot of what that does to the body. And the more I've grown to kind of study and understand this is it's kind of like, uh, puberty part two.

So we all know how fun puberty part one was it's puberty part two, cause it's a big hormonal shift. And for some women, I mean, the missing year periods are getting wonky periods can be an indicator. Now, sometimes like maybe we don't have periods or we're on birth control or whatever IUD, and we don't know what's going on there.

Weight gain can be a sign and it freaks people out. They're like, oh my gosh, what's what's going on with me? I don't feel like myself anymore. This isn't my body and There's all this stuff out there floating around on social media of like how to get rid of your belly fat and menopause and lose Weight and blah blah blah.

I wish I could scream this mountaintop because It doesn't get talked about, so it's normal and beneficial to our bodies to gain weight when we go through menopause. There is a reason that that happens, and it's because Mother Nature wants it to. So, postmenopausal women, two of their biggest health risks are heart disease and osteoporosis.

The reason the risk for those two things goes up after we've been through menopause is because there is less estrogen circulating in our bodies. Going through estrogen is like your ovaries stop secreting estrogen and you stop having periods. Estrogen, when we're premenopausal, protects our bones. It helps our bones stay strong and mineralized, and it protects our heart.

So when we go through menopause and we don't have that anymore, our bones start losing mass, and we can develop osteopenia or osteoporosis, which is a weakening of the bones, and we're at higher risk for heart disease. So the body recognizes this, and it says, Okay, here's my backup plan for creating estrogen.

And it does that through your belly fat. So that belly fat that everybody hates when they go through menopause is your body trying to protect its heart and bones. Because our belly fat secretes estrogen. So, it, we're quite literally fighting against Mother Nature in a way that if we're focusing on weight loss when we go through menopause, it is counterproductive for our health.

So, another interesting thing when we look at like the older we get, having Having some meat on our bones, having some weight is actually protective of our health and being at a lower weight and losing weight in that phase of our life can actually increase our risk of death. And it, you know, we're losing muscle mass and losing strength and mobility and all of that.

I hate the BMI. We could do a whole nother episode on that. If we want to talk about BMI categories, because everybody knows what that means. The people who live the longest are in the quote unquote overweight category of BMI. The people who die the soonest are in the underweight. The thinnest people die sooner.

The people who are allegedly overweight live the longest. And so we've got so much backwards thinking when it comes to our weight and our health. And that's one of the biggest things that trips women up when it comes to menopause. And so it's like, I just want to like shake people and be like, no, no, no, no.

The weight that you're gaining is your body doing exactly what your body is supposed to do. Oh, I'm so glad I asked because that was a phenomenal response. Thank you for breaking that down. And Katie, you are such a gem. You are so resourceful. Uh, you are such a great resource. You're so articulate. Um, I'm just curious, cause I know that everybody is just going to want to be in your energy and making themselves and their family healthier.

Where can people learn more about you? Yeah. So there's two places. Um, I have a podcast, it's called Rebuilding Trust With Your Body, and if you scroll through the episodes, you know, like, I always tell people just, you know, pick a couple that the topic resonates with you and check it out. And then as far as social media, I'm on Instagram quite a bit, so, uh, you can connect with me over there.

Wonderful. And what is your Instagram handle? It's at katieharvey. rd and it's Katie with a Y. So just for anyone, cause I know sometimes people go right away. It's at K a T Y H a R V E Y dot R D. Yes. Perfect. Okay. And so Katie, this has just been such a phenomenal discussion. I mean, you. Are a treasure trove of information.

Thank you so much for sharing all of your knowledge and your gifts and your talents here. And so there's one question we ask every single person who comes through the doors of the cozy caregiver cafe. So I just want you to imagine Katie, that you're going through a really Difficult time and the person that you most need to talk to agrees to meet you at the cozy caregiver cafe.

So you walk up the steps to the cafe and you push open the door and you see that person sitting at your table, waving you over. So you walk over and you pull out the chair. And you sit down, what does that person say to you? Yeah. And this, like, I'm choking up here because, um, the person that I think about is my mom and, you know, ironically she's the one I was helping to carry it for last year.

But when I imagine, you know, what would my mom say? What comes to mind is I think she would just say like, it's going to be okay. Like take a deep breath, um, you know, rely on your faith. Keep praying. Pray for the strength and the wisdom that you need and try to trust that Even though this is hard, that it's going to be okay and you're going to get through it.

Oh my gosh, it's going to be okay. Rely on your faith. Trust it's going to be okay. That's amazing. Thank you so so much for your time and your heart, Katie. This has been such a wonderful episode. Thank you.