In this episode, I am going to break down our 1:1 healing framework and dig into what we think are the most important areas to focus on when healing and what we specifically do with our 1:1 clients.
As always, this episode is for informational purposes only. I am a dietitian but I’m not your dietitian, so please make sure you discuss any changes with your provider.
What we cover:
Links/Resources:
Join the Patreon
Master Your Minerals Course
Learn more about working 1:1 with our team
Apply to work 1:1 with our team
Free Resources:
Free Healthy Period Starter Guide
Mineral Imbalance Quiz
Mineral Training
Thyroid Mineral Training
Feminine Periodical (monthly newsletter)
Listen Now
Amanda Montalvo [00:00:01]:
Welcome to the Are You Menstrual podcast, where we dive deep into all things women’s health to support you on your healing journey. I’m Amanda Montalvo, functional and integrative dietitian, also known as the Hormone Healing Rd. If you enjoyed this podcast and you want to keep learning, check out the podcast Patreon, where I share a bonus episode with additional downloadable resources. Each week you can go to patreon.com/hormonehealingrd or check out the link in the show notes. All right, I am back. I can’t believe it. I was thinking back. I’m like, it’s been since mid December since I’ve done a podcast episode.
Amanda Montalvo [00:00:40]:
So that’s about five and a half months when this one comes out. And it’s kind of crazy. I had a baby, enjoyed some time, kind of getting back to the swing of things for a few months. After that, it is a whole new world having a two year old and a newborn. So that’s been very interesting. But I just want to say hello to all my previous listeners. Thank you for hanging in there while I took a break and to kind of like rest and restore and just figure out, like, what the heck are we going to focus on next? You know, every time, like, I’m pregnant or have another child, I feel like I get so much clarity in things of, you know, what. What do I really want to focus on? What is the most important thing and how am I going to make things work as far as, like, you know, my, I’m always thinking of, like, how can I help more women, you know, achieve different goals, whether that be like, someone that’s, like, about to go through menopause, someone that wants to get pregnant and is having a hard time conceiving, someone that is having a hard pregnancy or postpartum or just someone that’s really struggling with their health in general.
Amanda Montalvo [00:01:47]:
And so my brain did a lot of work on that over the last few months. And we created a fertility program called Nurture your fertility that we’re launching in August with our first group. It’s like a hybrid program, so it has some one on one, some group. My favorite way to do things, because groups are magical. But yeah, so lots of exciting things coming up at hormone healing RD in general. And that’s where I’m at. That’s where I’ve been, if you’re wondering. I had people message me like, have you really not put a podcast out since December? And I’m like, yeah, I just had a baby, man.
Amanda Montalvo [00:02:21]:
You know, I gotta take a break sometimes, but podcast is back. Patreon is back. So I paused that for a few months. That is now up and running again and I’m adding content to that each month again. I just need to take a break and I couldn’t prep a bunch of stuff ahead of time. So if you are interested in getting the bonus content that I create, then you can go to patreon.com hormonehealingrd. We have lots of fun topics coming up, a mix of like histamine stuff, postpartum wellness, perimenopause, and like how do we approach different symptoms during that time and mineral support during pregnancy. Lots of fun stuff.
Amanda Montalvo [00:03:01]:
So lots of great bonus content there. If you want to check it out, the link is always in the show notes as well. If you’re watching the video version of this on YouTube, you’ll see my daughter Maya is with me. She’s never not with me. And yeah, so hopefully you enjoy the little tiny baby head that you get to see while going through this episode. So those are just a little some updates, some fun stuff that’s coming up in the podcast. Same thing we’re going to have like the hispanic episodes with Michelle Shapiro. She’s coming back.
Amanda Montalvo [00:03:29]:
I’m the next episode I’m going to do my career path because I cannot tell you I get DM’s every single day. How did you get to where you are? And I’m like, oh, that’s a loaded question. So I’m going to do a podcast episode for it. And then today we’re talking about the healing framework that I use in my practice and that my nutritionists use. You know, it’s everything. I’m always talking about teaching in my master minerals course, mainly because I’m like, you know, thinking about what I want to talk about this season. I did a poll on my Patreon and got a bunch of topics from them, but I’m like, a lot of the questions, they kind of come back to this idea of, like, what’s actually going to help me heal, what are the most important things to focus on? And I was like, you know, I’ve never really done an episode on, like, how we approach healing specifically and the different areas we focus on with clients. So that’s what we’re talking about today.
Amanda Montalvo [00:04:21]:
As always, this episode is for informational purposes only. I’m a dietitian, but I’m not your dietitian. So if you, before making any changes or anything, just make sure you always talk with your provider that knows your health history and all that stuff. So before I dig right into the different pillars of the healing framework that we use in our practice, I just want to talk about kind of, like, my perspective and how I got here. So I’ve been helping women heal their hormones, improve their health for just over a decade now. When I was planning out this episode, I was thinking back and I was like, oof, it’s been a while. And my approach has evolved drastically over the years. Same thing.
Amanda Montalvo [00:05:01]:
You know, I’ve always been on my own health journey. I got into all this because I had thyroid health issues, came off the pill, life was a mess, no one could help me. And I just switched my focus from sports nutrition to women’s health because I didn’t really have an option. I was like, I have to get my cycle back. I have to figure this out. And, you know, there was an Instagram and stuff back then. There weren’t people writing, like, famous books and stuff. Like, you had to do all the.
Amanda Montalvo [00:05:27]:
You’re on pubmed, you’re reading research articles, you’re in anatomy and physiology books. You know, you’re not, like, reading an Instagram post and learning a ton of amazing information from it. So a lot of things have evolved over time. Like, for example, I was trained functionally, and again, I’ll go through all my training in the next episode. I call it a traditional functional approach. So it’s where typically, you’re going to do a lot of lab testing and a lot of protocols, a lot of supplements to help your clients. And sometimes that really does work. Okay, I’m not saying lab testing is never helpful or that we should never take supplements.
Amanda Montalvo [00:06:09]:
Obviously, I utilize them every single day. I take supplements, especially pregnant and breastfeeding. So I’m not against anything like that. It’s just, you know, I was taught, oh, we do all these. We do these same five tests with every single client, and this is the type of protocol you create for them. And it was just very, like, it wasn’t personalized enough. And I’m like, aren’t we still kind of not fully getting to the root issue here? I feel like we’re not really getting to the root. And I had a lot of conflict with it, and I was like, I’m not doing this.
Amanda Montalvo [00:06:39]:
I’m not doing five labs off the bat. That’s insane sanity. Like, I can’t afford to do that. I can’t ask other people to do that. And half the time, it wasn’t actually going to change what I was doing with that person because we still had to work on their nutrition, their stress, the lifestyle piece. And so I was like, it doesn’t even make sense to do all this, but I was grateful for the training. I was grateful to have the understanding and learn how to read the labs. But as far as, like, how do I apply this information? It’s just changed so much over the years.
Amanda Montalvo [00:07:07]:
More testing is not always better, and if someone’s not ready, it’s important to recognize that. So that’s a big part of our practice. We use labs in our practice, obviously, but if they’re only if they’re gonna change what we recommend, only if, like, we absolutely need to know something. Like, if someone’s trying to conceive, maybe they’ve had a lot of recurring miscarriages or something, like, something specific then, and they haven’t done any stool testing. We’re gonna do a stool test to see what their immune system’s doing. You know, like. Cause we wanna make sure that’s not impairing their ability to maintain a pregnancy. There’s certain scenarios.
Amanda Montalvo [00:07:43]:
We’re absolutely going to do extra testing. We do hair testing with everyone, but we’re not like, oh, we’re going to, we’re going to do a dutch hormone test. We’re going to do a Gi map. We’re going to do all these tests with every single person. It just doesn’t make sense. But we sometimes we do them down the road, but a lot of times we do just a hair test with clients. They see amazing results and they never need to come see us again, so. And which is our goal, right? And unless they’re like, oh, I want to conceive, or I’m postpartum, and I want to do it, like, check in and see how things are going.
Amanda Montalvo [00:08:12]:
But ideally, it’s like, we don’t want you to need us anymore. So, yes, we use testing only if it’s absolutely necessary and only if it’s going to change what we’re doing. If someone really is data driven, wants to see a test, we’ll use it. But that’s, like, a big part of my practice that did definitely change over time. Just based on, like, is this really helping people? Is spending a ton more money on labs and supplements and more protocols adding to their stress or relieving it? Because a lot of times it seemed like it was adding. So things have shifted a lot. I definitely think there’s a lot of important areas of functional medicine that we apply to our practice, but when it comes to our healing framework, our goal is to meet people where they are and I think this is what gets left out. And when people send me messages and stuff online and they’re asking about, oh, what do you think about this test? What do you think about this supplement? What do you think about this modality? Something like that? I’m like, well, I mean, it’s hard to just say in general because I’m always comparing something to a person and like, their health history and do they really need it? Is actually going to help them? Is this going to help me get this person to this goal? Is kind of my mindset with that.
Amanda Montalvo [00:09:21]:
And so when someone just asks, like, what, like my preference is, I’m like, I mean, I wouldn’t do that one thing for everyone, but it might be really helpful for one person. So it’s always so important to keep that in the back of your mind. And that’s why I think going through these pillars and the areas that we like to focus on is helpful because then you can see, like, where am I in these areas? Have I worked on these? Have these even been on my radar? Or is it like brand new to me and something that I really haven’t even considered? When it comes to healing, it’s something that maybe you could start exploring. So just remember, you have to keep everything in context to yourself. Every lab test recommendation, every supplement recommendation, every new piece of nutrition advice, you have to keep it in context to you so that you can understand, is this actually going to help me and move the needle for me? And sometimes we need help to do that. You know, we need help from an expert and that’s obviously fine, but, you know, not everyone can afford to work one on one with someone and get everything kind of completely laid out for them. And either way, like, when we work with people, I’m like, we want this to be a two way street collaborative. I don’t want to just tell someone what they should do.
Amanda Montalvo [00:10:31]:
I want to know, what do you think about that? Have you ever explored this area? One of the questions on our client applications is, what do you think is preventing you from reaching your goals because no one knows your body like you do. And I can look at all the labs and health history that I want, but I’m still not in your body living your life every day. And that’s why I love challenging people with that question because sometimes people will really not know and that’s okay. But then other times people are like, man, I haven’t actually really, like, sat down and thought about this. Or maybe I do have more of an idea than I thought that I had. And usually their answer is at least partially spot on with what their root cause ends up being. So it’s really interesting. Experts are great, but don’t ever discount your own intuition on your health, because, again, no one knows your body like you do.
Amanda Montalvo [00:11:25]:
So let’s get into our healing frameworks and just keep in mind we meet people where they are. So we’re not like, asking everyone to do all the things, like, right away. Some people have already worked on certain things, but the one thing that we ask everyone to do, and I now put this on our one on one coaching page. I mentioned it in the video because not everyone wants to do this kind of stuff, is mindset work. I truly believe that the mental aspect of healing cannot be ignored. If you have never pictured yourself well, it’s likely going to be very, very difficult to achieve healing and overall wellness. And this is like something where I think of an example would be like, someone that’s obsessed with their healing or their health problems. And, like, it’s not for.
Amanda Montalvo [00:12:11]:
It’s usually for good reason. It’s usually because they have debilitating symptoms, or maybe it’s someone that’s, like, struggling with infertility and has not been able to conceive for many years. Whatever it might be, it doesn’t mean that there’s not a good reason for it. But if there is an obsession and, like, constant researching and trying the next thing and always looking for that next thing, we are typically not gonna be successful. And we always prep, we tell this to all of our clients when they do that mindset exercise or, like, we wanna help you learn from your symptoms and instead of, like, spiraling over them. Right. Symptoms are a sign of communication from our bodies. It’s.
Amanda Montalvo [00:12:51]:
I don’t wanna say. I know it doesn’t always feel like a good thing. And sometimes they can be really scary, but it’s your body trying to tell you, trying to communicate with you. If we didn’t ever have symptoms, we wouldn’t know what we needed, which in my mind would be kind of scary. So ultimately, we just try to get our clients in the mindset, doing this mindset exercise, thinking about what is it going to look like when they’re well, what are some positive changes they might feel or see? Because it’s really easy to miss those little wins when you’re along your healing journey. And if you’ve been struggling for a long time and you’re not, like, you know, we always say, like, what is it going to look like for you to be successful working with us. And it’s such an important question because it’s like, usually it’s, like, just that main goal, but then we have a lot of people that answer that question. They’re like, well, if I had, like, more energy at this time of day or if I was able to sleep through the night, or if overall I had less anxiety, like, a little.
Amanda Montalvo [00:13:43]:
So it may not be their main complaint why they’re coming to see us, but they’re like, these little wins is what they’re describing. And so we always try to highlight this right at the beginning. How can we get you in a healing mindset so that you can recognize wins and that you can and get you out of this chronic fight or flight? Cause that’s what it is when we’re spiraling about our health. You are chronically in fight or flight. Your energy is drained and used up because you’re always researching things online. And it’s not like, I don’t think it’s, like, people’s fault. I think there’s just so much information at our fingertips now, which is amazing in so many ways, but it can be incredibly depleting and overwhelming at times, too. So that’s why we always talk about the mindset piece.
Amanda Montalvo [00:14:24]:
Are you obsessing over your symptoms or using them as communication? And how can we slow down and take that information in and see what is your body trying to tell you and then take action from there? So that’s, like, the first area that we like to work on with people next is obviously minerals, right? I feel like that’s, I think, is incredibly foundational. And it’s funny. Cause I’ve had a few conversations with people on Instagram, like, other practitioners and stuff, and they’re like, I don’t really think minerals are foundational. They’re not, like, the first thing. And I’m like, they’re like, oh, you know, like, I like to work on, like, digestion and stuff first or, you know, whatever it might be, and I’m. So that they. Someone can, like, digest and absorb those minerals properly. And I’m like, okay, but what do you need for that? A lot of times, we’re using sea salt because that can help with stomach acid production.
Amanda Montalvo [00:15:10]:
Sometimes we’re using potassium if someone is constipated, and we need them having regular bowel movements. So I’m like, they’re still foundational there. You may not be trying to, like, fix some big imbalance or mineral ratio that’s not optimal right away, right? That wouldn’t make sense. But you’re still going to use that information on a hair test, or even just basic, basic mineral support through like sodium and potassium, maybe magnesium in order to help someone lay a strong foundation when it comes to nutrition and like having a healthy stress response. So I think they are absolutely foundational for healing. It doesn’t mean that like, we’re immediately going to focus on addressing every mineral deficiency and imbalance, but we instead, I like to think of using minerals to support the different systems of the body and help improve them overall. And that to me is absolutely foundational. We use hair testing with every single client and it’s nice because we’re not just getting their nutritional status, we’re getting a look at their actual stress response.
Amanda Montalvo [00:16:08]:
How depleted is this person? Are they chronically in fight or flight? Or are they super depleted and burnt out? Are they actively super stressed right now? Or maybe they have signs of inflammation. Maybe they have signs of poor digestion, maybe signs of the need to eat more protein. So many different things that give us a lot of like, foundational things to start with from like digestive support and stress, but also some really basic nutrition changes as well, balancing blood sugar, all those things. So minerals are another foundational area. If you haven’t focused on those and you’re unsure if you’re maybe new here, then I have a lot of free resources. I would say my minerals 101 guide. If you’re like a PDF kind of person, that’s a really good one because then from that guide, it links to podcast episodes that I’ve done and it’s got everything like in one area. So it’s, it’s, it’s nice because you can, if you like to read, cool.
Amanda Montalvo [00:17:01]:
But it’s not like a ton of reading. And then it’s like linking to different things, answering common questions when it comes to minerals. So you can get that via the link in the show notes. If you are wanting to learn more about minerals, the next area is circadian rhythm. So I had a podcast episode with Carrie Bennett. That’s the last one that came out before this one. So if you look at the previous episode, it’s all about circadian rhythm and your hormones. With Carrie Bennett, she is a true genius.
Amanda Montalvo [00:17:29]:
Such a nerd. Can’t love her more. And I’m definitely going to have her back on for sure soon, probably next season. And we talked about how important supporting your circadian rhythm is for your overall health, mainly because it helps support your body’s biological clock. And this clock controls the timing of all the systems of the body, pretty much. So basically, it’s. It’s responsible for, like, when different systems are going to release certain hormones, when your gut bacteria is going to shift to more detoxing bacteria for nighttime, or, like, bacteria that’s going to help you break down your food for during the day, melatonin release for nighttime, optimal sleep, powerful antioxidant, all those kinds of things. Thyroid hormone release, sex hormone release.
Amanda Montalvo [00:18:13]:
It’s so, so, so crucial and important. And it’s something that I think we. It’s like, very common sense. Like, people, maybe they listen to the podcast episode, or maybe they’ve gone through one of my courses, and they’re like, man, that is. It makes so much sense. Like, I got my mom into all this stuff in, like, the last year, and she’s, like, lost weight. She doesn’t take reflux meds anymore. She’s like a different lady.
Amanda Montalvo [00:18:37]:
It’s really, really cool to see. I never push anything on family. I’m always just like, I’m here if you want to learn more, because that’s never good, but it’s really cool when they want to do everything. And she was learning about it. She listened to the podcast episode, and then we were talking about it when she was visiting. She’s like, it just makes so much sense. I feel so much better when I’m outside more in the morning. And, you know, she used to have a habit of, like, walking first thing in the morning, and then she got out of that when her and my dad retired.
Amanda Montalvo [00:19:05]:
And now she’s, like, slowly getting back into things again. And she’s using. I got her blue blocking glasses. She’s using those at night. She’s like, man, I sleep so much better. She is post menopause. She wasn’t sleeping that good. I’m like, let’s talk about blue light.
Amanda Montalvo [00:19:18]:
And it tends to make sense for people once they start to learn about it. It’s just. And they’re kind of like, well, how come. How come I didn’t know about this sooner? How come I didn’t think to do it? It’s just not really normalized in our society. Like, we’re inside a lot. A lot of us are inside working under fluorescent lights all day. We’re not taking light breaks to get outside. Some of us are.
Amanda Montalvo [00:19:38]:
I always did that when I worked, like, a regular job at a nursing home. And. But it’s, you know, I just felt better when I was outside, so I wasn’t, because I was like, oh, circadian rhythm. And it’s, you know, we’re on our screens all the time. So we just get a lot of artificial blue light and, like, not as much sunlight. And the way that, you know, we’re getting up, going to work, or, like, rushing around, getting the kids to school, whatever it might be. So we’re not necessarily living a circadian lifestyle. It’s not what would be considered normal.
Amanda Montalvo [00:20:05]:
So I think, you know, if you’re not doing any of the circadian stuff right now, which is like getting outside first thing in the morning without glasses on, get light in your eyes. We love to have clients do this. If you. If we have clients that have thyroid issues or sleep issues, we’re like, please try to get out during Uva rise. Even if you just open a window and put your eyes through a screen, like, that will give you good uva light. And that helps support thyroid hormone production. And it can help with making neurotransmitters that are then going to help your sleep later. So there’s like, a few things that are simple that you can start to do again.
Amanda Montalvo [00:20:42]:
Listen to that episode I did with Carrie. It’s awesome. If you want to nerd out and get all the tips, we. She answers a lot of, like, frequently asked questions in there, too. But it’s just getting out in the light, especially primarily in the morning, natural light in your eyes without glasses, without contacts, because that blocks the uv light. And then, and you’re not going to get, like, all the wavelengths and everything in that helps kickstart that biological clock that then helps support all the different systems of your body run properly. When we’re inside getting this artificial light all the time, it’s like telling your body that it’s solar, noon, or, like, all day long. So it doesn’t.
Amanda Montalvo [00:21:17]:
It’s not getting this right timing. And then we wonder why we’re, like, wired and tired at night and can’t fall asleep or wake up, have restless sleep, things like that. So it’s crucial, if you want to get pregnant, do circadian rhythm stuff. It’s one of our top things that we focus on with our fertility clients. But, like, gut histamine issues, it’s so helpful for even just getting your abdomen in sunlight for, like, a few minutes a day. Incredibly helpful. It’s it. Sun is sun, and light is important.
Amanda Montalvo [00:21:46]:
And it’s not always going to be sun if you don’t live in a sunny place, it doesn’t matter. So check out that episode if you have not nerded out in circadian rhythm. But we do these first three, the mindset minerals and circadian rhythm. We give people this stuff before they start with us. So we’re like. Because usually they’re signing up like a month or two in advance. So we’re like, you can start working on this now if you want. Most people start, they come to us for their first session and they’re like, man, I noticed so many positive changes already.
Amanda Montalvo [00:22:12]:
I need to make an update to my intake form because of the circadian stuff and the mindset piece. So very powerful. If you haven’t addressed those on your healing journey, make sure you do. The other big pillar is, of course, nourishment, blood sugar. So food and blood sugar fueling our bodies and nourishing foods is so important, especially making sure that we’re also having some joy in those foods, if not most of what we’re eating. I think that’s critical of healing, that people don’t really talk about enough. You can eat perfectly, but if you are not enjoying your food, I don’t think you’re. I think you’re gonna be more stressed while you’re eating.
Amanda Montalvo [00:22:47]:
Your research has shown that you’re not gonna absorb nutrients from it as well, which I think is really interesting. And then the other big thing is, you know, are you stressed around every meal time? Ideally, I like to use meal times as like, a relaxing time for people. A time where they can, like, maybe just check in with their bodies. How do they feel in their bodies before they start eating and even thinking about their food and just start paying attention. It’s a time to, like, you know, put your phone away, unplug for a little bit. Three times a day, ideally, minimum, and it’s your time for you and me or you and whoever you’re with. Like, I’m always with my kids, but it’s like, meal times are very special. They can be stressful, but we don’t rush.
Amanda Montalvo [00:23:28]:
We don’t have to rush. So, you know, we’re just home all day, so obviously it’s going to depend on the person, but it’s like, I try not to rush if I don’t have to enjoy the meal, chew it, make something that’s tasty that we’re going to enjoy, and try to eat consistently, you know, like, not skipping meals, not taking that meal for granted, and being like, I’m going to do this instead. And sometimes life happens and you’re going to have to do that. But I think the more and more you prioritize the way of living, of like, okay, I’m going to sit down and prioritize this meal because. Because I’ve been going all day, I need to stop and do something for myself. That’s the way that I like to think about it. It’s not a luxury, it is a necessity. And I’m not going to be contributing to society type of human if I’m not fed or a good mom or a good practitioner or anything like that.
Amanda Montalvo [00:24:19]:
Nourishment and blood sugar is huge. I think these are the areas that people focus on first, which I. I do think is fine and very helpful. But if you haven’t even thought about your mindset around things, why are you making the choices you’re making or your light exposure? Those are two things where I’m like, that, again, helps set the foundation before you can, ideally, before you can start to make a lot of super specific food changes. And that might sound weird coming from a dietitian, but it’s like, for example, with your circadian rhythm, if your digestion is not going to be that great because your body clocks aren’t synced up, maybe you’re not making adequate thyroid hormone because you’re not getting good light exposure, maybe you’re not having a good stress response, maybe you’re not sleeping well. That’s going to be challenging for digestion. It’s going to mess with your blood sugar. All things that can make your food intake more challenging and not as effective.
Amanda Montalvo [00:25:15]:
That’s why we like to focus on those things first. With people, a lot of times they’re kind of surprised. But it’s like, if we get this nailed down, it’s going to make everything else easier. So nourishment and blood sugar is huge. We always like to focus on blood sugar, people, even if they don’t have, like, a history of insulin resistance or pcos, something where you think, oh, obviously we want our diabetes. Like you think, oh, we obviously want to focus on blood sugar for those people, but I think everyone needs it. I mean, it’s a great way to minimize the stress in your body if you keep your blood sugar stable all day. And so if you can learn how to eat nutrient dense meals with protein, fat and carb, like big meals, a few times a day, and then if you need snacks, you can fit them in there.
Amanda Montalvo [00:25:57]:
Everyone’s going to be different depending on the season of life, they’re in their health history, all those things. That is one where it helps to lower inflammation. People don’t even realize that their blood sugar imbalances were causing different symptoms. Like, I’ve had people, like, with recurring headaches and migraines have those completely clear up. People have much better energy, they’re sleeping better. You don’t have to have a big health concern to focus on blood sugar. It impacts everyone. The next big area is stress in the nervous system.
Amanda Montalvo [00:26:28]:
And this is a big one because the body cannot heal in a chronically stressed state. So we find a lot of our clients are addicted to stress. They’ve been in a high stress state for a long time and they don’t know how to be outside of that. They’ve been running off stress hormones for so long that when they’re not super stressed, they’re tired or they’re anxious and they feel weird, very uncomfortable, and that’s okay. Like, they like, tend to like intense exercise, more extreme diets. They feel wired and tired at nighttime. Hard time with appetite is typically a really common one, too. And they’re often like super, they’re struggling with things like thyroid, health, digestion, skin hormones, painful periods, all those kinds of things.
Amanda Montalvo [00:27:11]:
And so this is one where their bodies, they’re going to be completely depleted if we don’t get them out of this like chronic fight or flight. They’re going to have hormone imbalances being driven by that. They’re going to have blood sugar issues, all the things. And so we help our clients break this pattern by supporting a healthy stress response through minerals, of course. Again, that’s why we look at that as like foundational. Because if you’re, you don’t have a lot of sodium and potassium, then it’s going to be a hard time for your adrenals to have a healthy stress response. So that’s big. It’s going to be difficult to make good food choices if you’re chronically in fight or flight.
Amanda Montalvo [00:27:48]:
Again, we support balancing blood sugar to help people get out of this state. I have compiled all of my favorite and I think best to get started with mineral resources in one place. And that is my minerals 101 guide. This is a free guide that I will share my screen for those that are watching the video version of this podcast and go through with you quickly now. So I basically wanted a place where like, if someone’s new to my podcast, my instagram, and you’re like, wow, she mentions minerals a lot. And I, you know, I can go off on tangents and talk about how they’re so important for different things. I wanted a place where you could just download this quick guide and get right into, okay, what are minerals? How do they affect our hormones? How do they get depleted in the first place? How can we test them and then I have additional learning and resources depending on the topics that you want to get into. But I think this is definitely the best way to get started with all my content that I share.
Amanda Montalvo [00:28:46]:
Especially if you’re brand new here and you’re like, I don’t even know where to get started with minerals. Start here and I promise you won’t be confused and you’ll know what are the next steps to take. And if you have specific health concerns, you’ll see at the very end of the guide here I go through. Okay, so if you want to take our mineral quiz, if you have thyroid health concerns, if you have period concerns, if you just want to hear from me on a regular basis, here’s my newsletter. So I tried to put everything in one place. I also have mineral deep dive podcast episodes that I link to if you want to get into specific minerals as well. But I highly recommend downloading the guide. I put a lot of work into it and I think it’s a perfect place to get started.
Amanda Montalvo [00:29:26]:
So you can go to the link in the show notes, the minerals 101 guide, and get started now and then. Lifestyle what is filling your stress cup up and, like, what’s keeping you in this chronic fight or flight? I will say, like, sometimes it’s like things that people can’t control, for sure. Sometimes people have just, they’re just going through it and it’s like thing after thing comes up in their life. Maybe it’s with like loved ones or family members, maybe it’s a job situation, maybe it’s their own health. And so it’s. It’s one of those things where, you know, there’s plenty of things we can control, so we focus on those. Anything that’s not essential. If someone is like, has like really big goal, maybe they’re trying to conceive, maybe they’re chronically ill and they’re struggling with their symptoms and they can’t even work things like that, then it’s like, all right, we’re taking this extremely seriously and we’re gonna maybe make some bigger choices here.
Amanda Montalvo [00:30:18]:
But a lot of the times, it’s like simple things. It’s like, okay, how can we look at your typical day and see where we can remove stress or add a little more ease? I think that when we’re used to living in this chronic state of fight or flight, like, life always feels hard, and we’re used to life feeling stressful and hard, and so we don’t even notice that. Maybe we’re always rushing or always on our phones, we’re always attached to, like, a device or something. We’re always available to others. We’re overbooking our schedule. Little things that it’s like, this has been your norm forever, and a lot of people will be like, this is just my personality type. I’m like, is it, though? Like, do we, do we always need to be doing this stuff constantly? And we find a lot of those women, too, that either they are perimenopausal, I find, and they’re completely overdoing everything, taking care of everyone else, or they’re trying to conceive and they’re having a hard time. Those are, like, the two classic cases I think of when it’s like, chronic fight or flight.
Amanda Montalvo [00:31:14]:
They’re totally overdoing everything in their life, and it takes a real overhaul to bring them back in. Like, reel them back in, and we’re like, okay, we’re gonna get you. They’re completely disconnected from their bodies. They’re, you know, you ask them how they feel, and they’re like, I’m fine. No, I don’t really feel stressed. And so it’s. And I’m like, that’s because you’ve been stressed for so long. And so that’s when the nervous system piece comes in, and we use, like, orienting, which is an exercise for my re lion.
Amanda Montalvo [00:31:39]:
I did episode with her last season two. It was amazing. And we just do, like, some really basic things with teaching about the nervous system so people can start to get to know their bodies. What do I feel in my body? Maybe when I do try to do these things, I get very uncomfortable, and then that helps them connect and see I am stressed. I just didn’t really know it. And it’s usually very eye opening and pretty life changing. So stress and nervous system are huge. If you’ve never dug into them, I have previous podcast episodes you can listen to, but that’s a huge pillar.
Amanda Montalvo [00:32:10]:
The next one is gut health and digestion. And this one, like, people often think like, oh, I don’t have gut symptoms, so I’m not going to worry about my gut health. But our gut health extends way beyond gut symptoms, and it can impact our sex hormones, it can impact thyroid hormone levels. We do a lot of thyroid hormone conversion in our gut, our mood, sleep, and so much more. So, yes, like, we don’t do stool testing with everyone. Like I said, like, we only do stuff if it’s absolutely necessary. But we do always try to optimize digestion and pay attention to different labs. Like, maybe we’re looking at their hair tests and we’re seeing like, phosphorus is really low or really high.
Amanda Montalvo [00:32:51]:
Maybe their cobalt’s really low or really high. That gives some insight into, like, how you’re digesting protein and, like, stomach acid production. Maybe their sulfur is really low, which gives insight into detoxification. Liver function. Liver is really important for digestion. Makes bile, which helps us break down and absorb fat properly. And we remove a lot of excess estrogen and, like, toxins in our bile. So these are different areas that it’s like we’re always going to want to focus on these kind of depending on the person, what’s going to move the needle for them and what they need.
Amanda Montalvo [00:33:22]:
But even if you don’t have gut symptoms, you still want to understand, like, how can you optimize your gut health or if you’ve tried everything else. I just think of so many women, like, having a hard time trying to get pregnant or that struggle with a lot of symptoms popping up during pregnancy. Lots of skin rashes, acne reflux, histamine reactions, things like that. That’s when I’m like, how was your gut health going in? And those are definitely important areas to address as well. So depending on the client, we may just focus on, like, optimizing the gut and immune system function, or we may do further testing and then finally functional testing. So you’ll notice this is the last pillar, right? We’ve talked about mindset, minerals, circadian rhythm, nourishment in blood sugar, stress and nervous system, gut health and digestion. And now I’m talking about functional testing because it. It is just so.
Amanda Montalvo [00:34:18]:
Not. To me, the first thing that we want to be focusing on is like, advanced. I don’t consider the hair test advanced testing. To me, it’s kind of just like getting blood work done because it’s looking at nutrient status inside the tissue. So I guess technically that could be a functional test, and we do that right away with people. But I look at that as more like baseline, like, blood work type information, functional testing. I’m thinking like GI maps, dutch hormone panels, maybe organic acids, mold testing, stuff like that. It can be incredibly helpful to understand, like, what’s at the root and where the dysfunction is coming from in the body.
Amanda Montalvo [00:34:56]:
But you have to understand, like, what someone actually needs, what makes sense for them. We can’t just, like, take a number of tests and say, we’re going to do these on everyone. I don’t think that that’s a great way to practice personally. They’re very expensive. They can be very overwhelming for someone to take in all the information, information that’s on a few different tests. And then if someone’s really overwhelmed, they’re typically have a hard time making changes that are actually going to help them move the needle and improve their health. So we like to be wise with functional testing. We also still love blood work.
Amanda Montalvo [00:35:28]:
I mean, we have a lot of clients that get blood panels done because they are incredibly helpful. It’s sometimes we just need a little bit more information. Like if it’s gut health, you know, you got to do a stool test, but functional testing is helpful. It’s just not like the number one thing. Same thing with supplements, they’re so helpful. It’s just they’re not like typically the number one thing that’s going to move the needle for someone and continue to hold that success for them. So I always say we are not protocol only practitioners. It’s really important for people to know because a lot of times people think about working one on one with someone, they think they’re going to get labs and a protocol and that everything’s going to be fixed.
Amanda Montalvo [00:36:07]:
But ultimately, if you don’t have a strong foundation, if you haven’t addressed your stress, if you don’t understand what your nervous system is and how it functions and how it could be affecting you and how to support it, I just think it’s going to be really hard to find true long term healing. And that’s why a lot of times it’s like we’re not even doing testing until the end with people because we want them to have a solid foundation and we want the test to matter. You can do all the gut protocols you want, but if you haven’t addressed like, stress, circadian rhythm, sleep, you’re probably going to continue to have gut issues. Same thing with mold. Most people are not ready to do a mold detoxification. Most times their bodies already depleted. Most of our mold people are fast forwards and have very low minerals, which means they are depleted and they’re in the end stage of stress. Typically, that person is not going to handle a detox well.
Amanda Montalvo [00:37:02]:
And so we would have to build them up and work on other things first. So labs are helpful, they can be great, protocols are helpful. We do utilize them. But typically, like, if you’re thinking about working one on one with someone or if you’re thinking of your own health, and I mean, I pieced my whole health together. I know we get a lot of clients that do amazing work on their own. We had a few people enroll in our fertility program this last week and well, it’ll be like a month ago in the podcast comes out, but I’m reading through the applications and I’m like, they have done so much on their own, it’s like truly amazing. And now they just need some help to get that last leg of the healing journey and reach that goal of pregnancy. But it’s like you can do a lot of amazing things on your own.
Amanda Montalvo [00:37:48]:
You just don’t want to forget. Like, it’s not all about labs, it’s not all about supplements, it’s not all about food. How have you addressed your mindset? Have you considered mineral testing to understand your stress response and to know if certain things are even appropriate for you? That’s why we also like to do it before stool testing. Because again, if someone’s super low mineral is depleted, we’re not going to put them through a gut protocol right away because they’re probably not going to tolerate it. So keep everything in context with yourself. I hope that me going through the pillars was helpful for you for understanding. Kind of like our approach, but also like why we have this view and why we don’t just like do a bunch of test protocols and not focus on anything else. It is such a.
Amanda Montalvo [00:38:33]:
To me, it’s like functional medicine. It’s such an art form. You have to have this perfect mix of functional testing and protocols, things that are targeted, specific and science based, but also to blend in with sustainable lifestyle habits, mindset, nutrition, those sorts of things. So it really is an art form if you are looking to work one on one. I do have a team of practitioners that are currently taking one on one clients. I’ll put the link to apply and there’s a page on my website that goes through everything as well and a little bit more about our programs on there. I’ll put that in the show notes for you guys if you want to take a look. The number one question I got in my stories when I asked like, what do you guys want to know about our kind of nutrition team and how we practice? People are like, how does this work? Like what does it look like? So I’m going to go through that really quick and then I’ll talk about results that we’ve seen because I get a lot of questions about that too.
Amanda Montalvo [00:39:32]:
And then I have Q and a from the community here. So the way that the process and how it works is we have you fill out an application again that’s on our one on one coaching page. Then myself and my head nutritionist Aaron will review it we see, like, is this person a good fit? How can we help them? So we’re taking in everything that’s on your application and we think about, can we help this person achieve their goals? What might this process look like? And then what additional testing might they need? Because when we reach out to people, it’s typically me filming the videos, but sometimes Erin does them, too. But we send an acceptance email. If someone’s a good fit, we have a short video that walks through, like, hey, here’s what we think would probably make the most sense for you. It could change because. Because when you meet with your dietitian or nutritionist for your first session, I mean, a lot of stuff, there’s always things that come up in that initial session that weren’t on the intake form or in the previous labs, you know, so it’s hard to get everything in and know exactly what we’re going to do with someone before we’ve met with them. But we try to give you a good idea of like, oh, you have this health history and this is your goal.
Amanda Montalvo [00:40:39]:
We’re probably going to need this lab testing or because you’ve already done this stuff in the past, we’re not going to do this and here’s why. So we try to give an explanation, let you guys know, like, why we think you’re a good fit, what we’re going to do with you. Hey, things could change, but here’s what we think is going to happen. And then after that initial session, we know for sure. And we build out your program and we know what you’re going to do because we have all the information from there. Once you get accepted and you get your video, you can pay a deposit to save your spot. So if you, there’s a three month program and there’s a six month 101 program, and so it’s like a 10% deposit for each one. So you just pay that deposit to hold your spot.
Amanda Montalvo [00:41:22]:
We open like four to 6101 spots a month right now as of recording this. And, yeah, that’s, that’s like the main process. You put your deposit down and then once you do that, we act as if you’ve enrolled in one on one. So we send you access to your client platform, and that’s where we’re going to have you go through the mindset exercise. There’s instructions on how to complete your hair test, and then there’s the circadian rhythm lesson. And the goal is that you go through those before your initial session and complete your hair test before that session. So that we can have everything ready to go, especially if someone’s a three month program person. We’re like, we got a, we’re on a time crunch here, so we try to get as much as we possibly can done in that three month timeframe.
Amanda Montalvo [00:42:05]:
That’s why we do the hair test ahead of time. And then you, after you’ve made that deposit, you pay your initial payment or you pay in full, and then you have your, you schedule your first session with your nutritionist. And I’ve got our team Bios listed on that one on one coaching page, too. I do meet with our nutritionists and our team each week, and we go through our clients, and we’re like, how’s this person doing? What do they need help with? Okay, this is a new person. We prep for the initial, and then after the initial, everything changes. And not always, but sometimes. And then, yeah, whenever labs come in, we meet and stuff. So it’s a very collaborative process.
Amanda Montalvo [00:42:42]:
We’re all very nerdy and constantly sending each other like, oh, did you see this research article out on this? So it’s really fun. And that’s, that’s how you work one on one with us. And you’re either going to meet typically twice a month with your nutritionist, and then hair test is included. And if you need additional labs, then we figure that out as well. But again, that is, like, based on the person. We don’t, we’re not like, okay, everyone’s got to do all these tests, and that’s our one on one process. And then you go through your three or six month program. You retest your hair at the end.
Amanda Montalvo [00:43:11]:
We leave you with recommendations based on, like, okay, what have we accomplished during this time? What do we. What do we want to do from here? Sometimes people have reached all their goals, and then they have a different area they want to focus on. Like, we tend to get a lot of people that have, like, they’ve reached all their goals. They feel amazing. They’ve improved, like, thyroid health cycles, whatever it might be, and then they’re like, well, I think I definitely want to conceive now or in the next, like, year or something. So then we focus on that. Or if someone improves everything, but they’ve, I just think of, like, we have a lot of perimenopausal clients, then it’s like, okay, when I get here, what should be my focus? So we’re always kind of like, we leave you with a plan, and then there are ways to follow up after that with your nutritionist if you want as well, that are not like a full package. You can just buy, like, a few sessions.
Amanda Montalvo [00:43:54]:
So that’s our one on one process. We’ve seen a lot of different results. I would say that the big, like, pockets of clients that we tend to work with, thyroid clients, for sure. We’ve helped a lot of women get off thyroid medication for both hypo and hyperthyroidism. I’ve had a lot of graves clients in my career, and it’s something I remember. My first graves client, I was like, oh, this is going to be incredibly complex and difficult. I think graves is, like, one of the easier things to heal. So we use iodine therapy, like stress management, all the pillars we went through, and it’s, like, pretty amazing.
Amanda Montalvo [00:44:31]:
Those clients always do really well. So I mention it, but because I think people don’t talk about hyperthyroidism enough and people are like, oh, well, this worked for that. So we’re not just hypo. We do both. We’ve seen so many improvements in, like, energy, hair growth, digestion is a huge one, blood sugar for these clients. The other big kind of client population we have is skin issues. So that could be eczema, acne, psoriasis, and we’ve helped them clear up their skin, always after supporting their livers, gallbladders, detoxification in general, and then addressing gut health and minerals. You can’t skip the gut with skin.
Amanda Montalvo [00:45:05]:
It’s so. So even if you think you have hormonal acne, it’s still. It’s so important to address. We have a lot of clients that want to conceive or are struggling with their fertility, so we’ve helped many of them get their cycle back, start ovulating, improve their cycle from 60 plus days. This one client recently went down to 34 days. Very quickly. I was like, oh, my gosh. And then get.
Amanda Montalvo [00:45:27]:
Help them get pregnant, which is, like, the ultimate goal, and maintain that pregnancy, but also feel good throughout. I know, like, when you’re really struggling to conceive, it’s like you just want to be pregnant. You don’t care. And I’m like, you want to feel good, trust me. Like, you don’t want to feel awful during pregnancy. So that’s like, the other goal is, like, before you can nurture life, we have to nurture you. And that’s something we really focus on with those clients. We have lots of menopausal clients or women that are kind of going through that perimenopausal season, and we’ve helped them improve their energy, their libido their ability to of focus and their memory.
Amanda Montalvo [00:46:02]:
Brain fog is like one of the top complaints with that population for us, improved body composition. So get rid of some of that unwanted body fat that they feel like is impossible at this point in their life to get rid of, improve their sleep. Very special area for these clients. They’ve often been sleeping terribly for a very long time when they come to see us. And then their overall mineral status. You know, when you’re, the longer you’ve been alive, the more minerals you’re going to have the opportunity to burn through the mortgage stress you’ve dealt with, the more life you’ve lived, right? So that’s not always bad stress, but that can definitely deplete someone. So improving that mineral status, I’m always like, yes, is a huge, huge, huge win. And then endometriosis clients is another big population that we work with on a regular basis.
Amanda Montalvo [00:46:47]:
We’ve seen them reduce that endo belly, improve digestion, which is often incredibly challenged in this population, improve their bowel movements, which is, again, it’s like either lots of bowel movements or really constipated. So the goal is to always bring that into a good, optimal place, reduce inflammation and improve that immune system, because that is on high alert with endometriosis, and then improve their overall health and quality of life. I mean, it’s like chronic illness, right? I’ve just, we’ve had a lot of clients with endometriosis and like severe endometriosis where they, they, they have difficulty getting out of bed every day. They’re exhausted, they can’t feed themselves enough. So we’ve had lots of wins with those clients and then histamine gut clients, of course, we have so many histamine and gut cases now, it’s crazy. And we’re going to do those histamine episodes and we’ll talk about why, I think why we have so many more now, but we’ve been able to help them reduce histamine symptoms like headaches, get a more consistent heart rate, get rid of kind constipation, lose stools, have consistent, normal bowel movements, get rid of reflux, improve cramping, because period pain is a big one for these clients as well. Eczema, skin rashes, sleep, I mean, everything. So lots of wins.
Amanda Montalvo [00:48:06]:
I mean, unfortunately, a lot of our clients struggle with his issues, but that’s definitely an area that we help with a lot. And then finally, postpartum is probably like the other big category where we help women that are struggling postpartum, improve their digestion. There’s almost always, like, skin, gut energy, thyroid thing going on, typically improve their milk supply. We’ve had a lot of moms have issues with their babies that have GI symptoms, poor sleep, reflux, all those things. And working on mom’s gut health is so helpful for their babies as well. So lots of amazing wins. I love the work that we do every day. I’m excited to get up and do it.
Amanda Montalvo [00:48:43]:
And those are the main, like, populations that we tend to help. Time to answer your instagram questions. So a lot of people ask, like, how do you prioritize labs when they’re so expensive? And I just wanted to reiterate this because I feel like the lab question always comes up, and my answer is to only do labs that are going to change what you’re doing or what’s being recommended. So if a practitioner is recommending a lab test, you want to know why is it going to change what I’m already doing? If it is, then maybe it’s absolutely necessary and it’s going to help you move the needle. If it. It’s not, and they’re just kind of wanting to know something, it’s not going to change their recommendations. I personally wouldn’t do it, especially if you were in a place where you’re struggling financially to add more to that stress burden. I’m like, it’s just not worth it.
Amanda Montalvo [00:49:32]:
And then I had a few questions about, like, okay, when it comes to hormone imbalances, what systems of the body should you prioritize first? Again, people want to know, do I work on digestion first? Do I work on thyroid first? What about gallbladder or adrenals? When’s the right time to decide to do additional testing, like a gi. A gi mat, blood work, or Htma? And what I say to that is like, we either bought, nothing happens in isolation in the body. So it’s kind of funny to me when we think about, like, okay, like, we’re gonna only focus on digestion. It’s like. But, like, that’s. And that one’s a perfect example. So it’s like, okay, we’re going to focus on digestion first, but what. What impacts digestion? If I were to focus on that with a client, we’d be talking about not only, like, digestive support, maybe things like apple cider vinegar or bitters or digestive enzymes, depending on the person, what’s appropriate, but I’d also be talking about, how are you eating your meals? Are you sitting down? Are you chewing your food? Are you super stressed? Are you scrolling on your phone? We would no doubt talk about the vagus nerve and how can we support your nervous system a little bit before you eat? What’s, like, one quick thing that you can do that’s going to help you calm down and digest that meal better.
Amanda Montalvo [00:50:45]:
So it’s like you can say you want to focus on one area and you may hear someone, like, explain it that way. And a lot of, I just think of, like, Instagram, a lot of times people are using that, that type of language in their marketing because they’re trying to keep it simple and they’re trying to talk to someone’s pain points and their problems. So, like, like, for example, like, if someone’s talking about, like, oh, if you have hormone concerns, I fix hormone issues through gut healing. Maybe that’s like, their thing. And they do stool testing. They focus on digestion. But then if you really look at what they’re doing, they’re probably addressing all these other areas, too. They’re just using their marketing language to focus on, oh, if you have hormone issues, you have to address this.
Amanda Montalvo [00:51:27]:
And I know that that kind of marketing sells, and I could probably make my life a lot easier and more simple if I did that sort of thing. But I’m like, my audience is smarter than that. And I’m okay if it takes someone a little bit of following me to learn from me and to really understand things, because I’m not going to dumb something down just so that to try to make it simple for someone. Do I think it’s important to teach things in a very simple and easy to understand way? Yes, but it doesn’t mean that we have to leave whole groups out and just say that you have to focus on this system first because it’s easier for someone to understand, but it’s not actually true. And then that’s where these kinds of questions come up. They’re like, well, how can you work on minerals if you haven’t worked on digestion and gut health? It’s like, well, they’re kind of all happening at the same time. You’re not going to, like, never. You’re not going to just work on your gallbladder.
Amanda Montalvo [00:52:28]:
Maybe you’re taking, maybe supplement wise, maybe that’s what this person thinking of is like, okay, like they’re doing a digestive supplement, and then they’re first, and then maybe they’re gonna do something for their thyroid, like a glandular, but they want to do the digestive stuff first. Like, maybe that’s what they mean. I just always think about things as like nutrition, lifestyle, supplements. How do those all relate to this one thing that we’re trying to focus on? And it’s like you’re typically hitting all those areas at once. As far as like, how do we know when we need to do more testing? I would say if you are hitting a wall and you’re not seeing results of what you’re currently doing like this, I have that replenish your minerals course that came out in February. And it’s like a really basic, like, if someone were to come to me and say, like, what can I start doing right now that’s not testing or supplements to get better? That’s what the course is. Highly recommended. It can be all podcast format.
Amanda Montalvo [00:53:24]:
I’m like very proud of it and I really love it. And I’m like, someone could probably just do this and, and solve a lot of their issues. And that’s the goal, right? We don’t always want to do further testing. So if, but if in that course, I talk about like at the end, how do I know if I need to actually test my minerals? It’s like if you feel better and you’re in a good place with the changes that you’ve made and you’re not concerned with things anymore, then you wouldn’t do any further testing. If you maybe are, you’ve seen success, you’ve seen like some good results, you feel better, but you have some lingering symptoms. Like I think of, like, I’ve had so many women go through it and they’re like, I feel so much better, my energy’s better, but I still have painful periods, you know, what should I do further testing? Yes, you definitely want to do that or I feel so much better. I’ve improved so many things, but I want to conceive and I don’t know, like what kind of supplements I need to take, then, yeah, you’d want to do hair testing. Or if I see a lot of people that are like, I improve my appetite, my energy, my sleep is still not great, then definitely would want to do further testing.
Amanda Montalvo [00:54:24]:
And that’s when I always say, do the hair testing first. It’s a lot cheaper and it’s gonna show you, like, where you’re at stress wise and what your body has the capacity for. Like, I wouldn’t do a stool test without doing a hair test because then you also don’t have as much insight into, like, well, what minerals are depleted that could be affecting this stool test. So, like, for example, I think of like, if someone has really high zinc on their hair test, and that’s a sign that their body’s using up that zinc. We’ll probably see that show up on their stool test. Maybe they have a pathogen or a parasite, maybe their immune system is super active, or maybe they have really, really out of balance copper. We saw this recently with a client, copper, sky high on her hair test, high in her blood work, and then she had a ton of candida like, bungalow overgrowth on her stool test, and it’s like, boy, well, thank God we looked at her minerals, because this excess of unavailable copper, her body can’t use it. Also, her body’s probably, like, compensating because copper is antifungal, but if it’s not available for use, then her body can’t use it.
Amanda Montalvo [00:55:27]:
Now she’s got this candida overgrowth. Like, if we’re just trying to get rid of the candida and we don’t address the minerals, that candida is going to come right back. So it’s like, if you’re not seeing the results you want, then I definitely do further testing. You just want it to be the right testing to make sense. And I would just ask a practitioner, maybe you work one on one with someone. Maybe you just ask, like, how I just answered this question, you know, what kind of order should I do things in? What’s absolutely necessary? So, in blood work, I think is it’s like, you could basically always do blood work. It’s not the most helpful, but it’s still helpful to have, like, for example, if someone tests their thyroid and their blood, and it’s like, oh, everything is normal. But then you look at your hair test and you have all these markers that show sluggish thyroid.
Amanda Montalvo [00:56:15]:
Then of course, the blood work wasn’t super helpful. So you just want to always keep things in context and think about, like, okay, what’s going to get me the most bang for my buck? That’s why we always do hair testing. It shows us all the systems of the body, and then do we need to pair it with something else? Because we’re not achieving a specific goal? But I don’t think the answer is always additional testing. Okay. Someone asked, can you help with LPR reflux? And I said, yes, this is very common. We see it a lot. It is a very similar approach that we take to looking at gut health, digestive function and health history. But with LPR reflux specifically, we do recommend seeing your doctor to find out if you have a hiatal hernia.
Amanda Montalvo [00:56:59]:
It’s incredibly common to have a hiatal hernia and have that be part of your root cause as well. And so like, chiropractors can be really helpful for like actually adjusting your spine, creating space so that this hernia is not being pushed out and then causing the reflux. You can get adjustments sometimes depending on the chiropractor to put it back in. But you, you do want to work. You don’t want to just do that every time you want to look at your body and your posture and your alignment overall, I’m not a chiropractor, so it’s not my area of expertise, but is that’s my understanding. And then just day to day awareness, like, of your posture and how you carry yourself is so important for these clients. Nervous system work, all those things. So we can definitely help.
Amanda Montalvo [00:57:44]:
But you do typically need to have someone else in your care team to make sure that if one, do you have a hiatal hernia, that’s part of the problem because that needs to be addressed if we’re really going to get rid of it. And then two, like what’s, what kind of like, modality are you going to do? I have had clients that do Bow Spring, which I’m going to do a whole podcast episode on soon that helps with their fascia, their alignment, and they don’t need to see a chiropractor to get adjustments for the hiatal hernia. But yes, to the person that asked this, we can help with that. But it is like, we’re not like the only person on the care team for that. I had a few people ask about scholarship opportunities. I don’t have scholarships for 101. I do have scholarships for master your minerals. I give two, I give away two scholarships a month for master minerals that include a hair test as well.
Amanda Montalvo [00:58:33]:
So they get access to the course for life and a free hair test. And then after that they stay inside. They’re just like any other course student, they stay inside. I have some people that have retested in the future. We’ve had so many cool scholarship students where they see amazing results. They catch us up in the future and they’re like, oh my gosh, I went through the program. I was this winner from this month and this year and this is what I accomplished, which is really neat. So we do have scholarships for that, but not for one on one.
Amanda Montalvo [00:59:04]:
Someone also asked about payment plans. We have a three month payment plan option and a six month for one on one. Again, those are listed in that like 101 coaching page on my website that I will put in here as well. And then someone was asking about, can you help heal from antibiotics, like after someone has taken them? Yes, for sure. I would also say, like, a few things to just consider kind of depending on the person, but, like, just supporting gut lining. I just had a family member that had to take them. And this is like, all the stuff I went through. I sent them a bunch of stuff, but I love using l glutamine for this slippery elm marshmallow root.
Amanda Montalvo [00:59:42]:
And then if they, someone can tolerate it, like bone broth, like really gelatin, like jelly rich bone broth is helpful. Probiomed 50 is a great probiotic that I like to use to repopulate. Not, it’s not always necessary. And some people, it’s not the best fit, but that’s a good one in general. And then trying to increase those prebiotic rich foods with that probiotic. So making sure you’re getting those supporting digestion, you know, that’s a big one. I feel like a lot of people’s digestion gets messed up when they take antibiotics. So those are, those are the general areas, but we can absolutely help with that as well.
Amanda Montalvo [01:00:17]:
And then I had one more question for specific things we help with. Someone asked about having a difficulty with weight loss. Colored phlegm and autoimmune. I think their autoimmune is in remission. But we, yes, we get a lot of weight loss resistance, and it’s when someone can’t lose weight, I’m like, why does your body not getting the message that it’s safe to let go of some of this extra weight? And so that’s when we dig into stress, leptin, hormone, circadian rhythm, all those things, and then hormones, gut health, our gut microbiome plays a huge role in that as well. So that is definitely an area that we can help with. Not like one of our main, it’s usually like a kind of like a side effect of, like, the work that we do. We’re not specifically focusing on weight loss typically, because it’s usually like, well, why can’t you lose weight? And there’s like a bigger problem underlying.
Amanda Montalvo [01:01:09]:
And that’s where we dig in first. But that’s our healing framework. Those are all the different areas we focus on. I think you can absolutely focus on them yourself, too, and just, you know, reflect on this episode if you are struggling with healing or kind of not knowing where to go next. There’s a lot of information out there. And so I think just kind of slowing down and doing some reflection is really important. Whether you work with someone one on one, or not. And then for those that are interested, we do have one on one spots typically open.
Amanda Montalvo [01:01:37]:
We’re pretty much always like accepting applications for those, and so I’ll put the link to the one on one coaching page in the application in the show notes of this episode. But I hope this is helpful and brings a little more context to like, how we actually help clients and work with people, and just how I am viewing that healing journey for each person in general as well. So next episode I’m going to dig into my career path, how I got here, the different trainings that I’ve done, all that fun stuff. So make sure you turn into that if you are interested in that as well. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Ruffian Menstrual podcast. If you want to support my work, please leave a review and let me know how you like the episode. This lets me know like, what you guys want more of, less of. I read every single one and I appreciate them more than you know.
Amanda Montalvo [01:02:25]:
If you want to keep learning, you can get access to the bonus episode and additional resources on patreon.com hormonehealingrd. I’d love to have you in there. Thanks again and I will see you in the next episode.
