Apron's Dr. Lisa Chantel here today, I'm being interviewed on the Westway podcast with Chantel Ray. Now listen up.
Hey, guys, welcome to this week's episode, and I'm so excited for my next guest. She's a functional medicine expert, a doctor of physical therapy, a personal fitness trainer and the founder of a wellness coaching program called Vital Restart. Welcome, Dr. Lacey's Chantel.
Thank you so much for having me. Chantel.
So I my sister is a doctor of physical therapy as well, so she will enjoy listening to this. So I know you have a very interesting wellness journey. Can you tell the listeners a little bit about your personal journey and how it led you to functional medicine?
Sure, I'd love to. So I'll give you the compressed version and otherwise would be here for an hour just talking about me. So as you already introduced, I was in this world of fitness from a very early age. I was a personal fitness trainer and I went ahead and did a doctorate. So I was somebody who really had my plate overfilled and did way too much. Eventually when I finished my doctorate, I got a first illness. I got a new tie, first one I ever had in my entire life. And then after that, I ran from the medication that I was on it. It made me really fatigued thereafter. The antibiotics didn't really work with my body and I have never reaction really messed up my gut. I spent the next six months not really feeling myself and I got the shingles and then at 28 years old, they were doctors are like, what's wrong with your immune system? You're getting the shingles at twenty eight years old. Fast forward another six months. And then I developed vasculitis in my eye and I lost vision in my left eye while I was at work. So right after that happened, my health took a nosedive and I was in the hospital for several days and developed all kinds of nausea and vomiting, digestive issues, chronic pain disorder, anemia, where you have difficulty maintaining your blood pressure, your heart rate, staying upright. I would pass out very easily and regulate my body temperature. So lots of tests later, we found out that I was in this gray zone of autoimmunity. I didn't have a diagnosis yet. I just had some markers that looked slightly abnormal. And then the next two years of my life are close to two years of my life. I tried the conventional model of trying to get better, tried countless drugs to control my digestive issues, my chronic pain and the inflammation of from the vasculitis that took turns attacking different parts of my bottom of my heart, my kidneys and so on is pretty disabled by chronic fatigue as well. And so eventually I started trying different nontraditional therapies to try and control some of my symptoms. And I found some relief, but it wasn't lasting. So eventually I just decided to become my own doctor because I figured no one would be more invested in me getting better than me. And so thankfully, I found the Institute for Functional Medicine and I took all of their coursework and I figured out all the different pieces of my puzzle that were causing me to stay ill. And so I had some I had a leaky gut.
I had infections in my gastrointestinal tract. I had imbalances in my hormones, and I had adrenal dysfunction where my adrenal glands weren't working quite as well. That was even affecting my balance on my mineral balances. And that was what the of normal was. So I had all these issues and I kind of reverse engineer it to fix myself. And now that's what I do for other people.
That is amazing. I love that. So for the listeners who don't know, can you explain the focus of functional medicine and how it differs from traditional medicine?
Correct. Sure. So functional medicine, it's getting to the root cause of your symptoms and then figuring out what is missing that your body needs in order to heal itself.
So I use most of the tests that I use are just conventional tests that any physician can order, like a of metabolic panel, you know, blood count, things like that. But I'm looking at a much narrower range and then comparing that with all of your symptoms. So for me, what then I do is I have people fill out a history that goes all the way back from when they were in their mommy's belly to where they are today. One hundred and eighty items of symptoms and everything else along with these tests. And then I figure out what is that, that their body is missing. So I'm looking for this narrow range of optimal tissue and organ function, the person's symptoms, and then pairing those things together to say, OK. We have some issues with maybe having low vitamin D, having some deficiencies in amino acids. There could be some chronic inflammatory statements happening. Where is that patristic happening? Can we reduce it? Is there an issue with detoxification, so on and so forth. And then based on what I find that would put it in an order of operations to then correct those things.
I love the way you said that. You said narrow window of ranges, right? Is that what you said?
Oh, my gosh. Yeah. So you know how you go to the doctor and many people, everyone comes to say visits, they go to the doctor. They tell the doctor they're fatigued. They get a handful of basic tests done. And the doctor says there's nothing wrong with you. And you're like, but I don't feel good. And sometimes it's just because what they're looking for is that pathological range.
So the ranges that most labs actually use are just everybody who went to that lab and did that test in the last three hundred and sixty five days.
Well, and then they take two standard deviations around the mean. So you're on either side of that. Then you have, quote, the disease state. But there's a place in there that maybe your tissues and organs are functioning as well. So a good example of this might be, for instance, vitamin D, there's like a lot of people have a little vitamin D and it might be OK on the lab range to have a vitamin D of 30. But if where you used to live, when you didn't have chronic inflammation in your body was a vitamin D of 60, now 30, might feel like it's too low for your body.
That is so good.
Yeah, and I'll give you a perfect example for like if you went to a doctor who was a traditional doctor, their lab test, most of them show for your tests on your thyroid. They would say zero to five is normal. But if you went to any functional medicine doctor, they would tell you from really zero to two is normal. So if you if you did any range, basically, if I simplified it and you tell me if you disagree, if the ranges from zero to 10 for a for a regular doctor that was traditional, someone who's a functional medicine doctor would say, well, if your range is somewhere between four to seven, that's where you feel the best anywhere on these outliers, you're not going to feel good. Do you agree?
Yeah. So that's exactly right, is that there's there's there's a narrow range where we know where we expect or cognitive function to be the best. And then there's the individual and stuff. So based on where you used to be and if we have a history of you doing these labs, that can be helpful to you to know what may have changed for you. There's also thyroid in particular. You know, that's one that's definitely a soapbox for me because I had an induced hypothyroidism when I was really sick. Is that it can be it can be missed because the conventional tests are just the doctors are trained to just do one or two measures, a Tsuge and possibly a three to four. And the reason why is because then the typical medication that's used is just a T for medication. However, in terms of how your body uses the hormone and how much it has available for use, the phrase the active hormone, that's important to check that to you.
And then you can have an over conversion into recycling your thyroid hormone and that's a reverse T three. Some people have autoantibodies, never get them checked. So if you have an autoimmune thyroid disease, which I didn't, but some people do, the vast majority of people do, is that then that's very helpful for knowing what sort of should or should not be eating that can mimic thyroid hormone and bind to the thyroid binding sites, which I know for you, you actually did go gluten free and dairy free. And many thyroid patients feel much better when they do because of that and that binding of those food particles into the thyroid binding sites.
Yeah, and I think that I'm sad when you said the word standard deviation, I'm a math major. I actually have my degree in mathematics. And so for people who are not math gurus, standard deviation is a no use to tell how measurements for a group are spread out from the average or an expected value. And so, like a low standard deviation means that most of the numbers are really close to the average and a high standard means they're spread out. So like if you ever see those graphs that go from low, then they go high, then they go low back again. How how you explained it was so good because the functional medicine people are going to say, here's where it goes. Back to what I said here. Zero here is ten. If five is our peak, they might say, hey, here's where you feel the best when you're between four and six. And and a functional medicine guy will say four to six, but a regular physician's going to be zero to 10. And if you're really at zero and then they go, no, you're all your stuff comes out perfectly normal and that's where you get well. I went to the doctor and they said all my, my my blood work is great. So that is a really great analogy, especially for me who's a math major.
So I think that's all right.
Now, I want to ask a question that I ask all my guests, so I'd love for you to walk me through a day in the life of what do you love to eat like breakfast, lunch and dinner.
OK, so I typically don't eat breakfast. I am an intermittent faster have for the better part of a decade now. But so when I wake up I usually have water, one glass of water with lemon or electrolytes or something else. I usually do some sauna time in the morning and or exercise and then I usually have tea or coffee. So that's usually what I eat before noon, eat or drink before noon. And so that later in the day my I work from home. So I have the luxury of being able to prepare my food the most, most of the time when I have time to do so. The last couple of days haven't been the case, but generally speaking, my lunches are leftovers or a very quick. Piece of meat and some vegetables or something like that, and then dinner is the same, it's more meat and vegetables. Last night we had some chicken thighs that were just cooked in a pan with that had been marinated in Colapinto and cilantro and garlic and that sort of the stuff. And then I placed that on top of a big bowl of greens and it was cabbage and kale and arugula and tomatoes and jicama and the same sort of sausage marinated the chicken and on top of it.
So is there any groups that you just say, you know what, these food groups do not do? Well, for me, like I definitely my my newest book, I have a new edition coming out. The second edition is coming out right away, and it will talk about red light foods, yellow light foods and green light foods. And what I talk about is that every one of us have to create our own hay. Like for me, my red light fruit food is gluten. If I have something with gluten, I am on literally like in bed. I do not feel good. I'm so tired I can't even function. And now do I say that everyone should be gluten free? You know, if you can eat gluten and you feel like a million bucks when you eat it, then fantastic. But for me that's a red light food. And then I have other foods. That's a yellow light for me. Like, I don't feel great when I eat this, but I'm definitely not in bed. So I'm going to eat this every once in a while and then I have my green light foods. So talk a little bit about for you. What's your red light foods? What's your yellow light foods and what's your green light that works for you personally?
I love this question. I love it. You're putting this in your book. I just have to say that real quick, because that's something that I did with every one of my patients, is help them figure out not just what diet is going to be helpful for you to help heal your body right now, but then your lifestyle, how do you want to perceive forevermore to stay in good health? And so you kind of figure out what foods agree with you, which ones are kind of iffy. You can get away with a little bit here and there, the ones that don't. So for me, over the years, what I have figured out is two things about the foods I don't eat are wheat and dairy. I just don't eat them. And for me, it's because I have this weird immune system. It's not worth it to me.
There's so much evidence that suggests that that can be a trigger for life. You got that can be a trigger for autoimmunity. So many such a high percentage of the population have sensitivity or allergy to those two foods that I just stay away from them with a heart stop in terms of my yellow foods. Yellow Foods for me are things like Kiwi's and walnuts, things that I know that you get a little bit of a reaction to. So like my tongue will be a little sensitive, maybe my mouth is a little off. Maybe I develop a little bit of excess mucus in the back of my throat when I eat those things. But you just a tiny bit or don't eat them on a regular. It's just fine by my body. But then the foods that I have, I have to eat every day. There's like this whole carnivore movement and eating more meat and and what have you. But I could never do that. I need good balance of a fair amount of vegetables. I eat, you know, quite a few vegetables every day and then more moderate amount of protein and adequate amount of fat.
Awesome. So this let's jump right into the list our questions and this one is from MJ, but it doesn't say where she's from or he. I have been intermittent fasting for three months and finding great success, having lost twenty pounds with only ten more to go. But besides that, I am searching for help with my frequent UTI eyes. I have suffered from these painful flare ups for more than 30 years and have taken every antibiotic out there. I've been doctoring with a urologist for over two years with no results. What can I do next? Help MJ.
OK, so here are a couple of things that come to mind when I hear this question. Number one is that this has been going on for the better part for over thirty years. So no one is what is the age of this individual. So as we age, especially as women, as we go through menopause or after we have babies, is that hormonal?
This can happen. And so that can change the tissues and change. And the tissue changes can actually affect the urinary tract and not just the vagina. So some of the things that I think about is, OK, there are some tissue atrophy happening here given due to age due to hormonal shifts that. Sort of thing, but then the other thing that I think about is despite this, that has occurred, so that's the every one of our parts of our body have their own microbiome or I have the microbiome. Skin on that side of her face has a microbiome. Our gut has a microbiome. Our urinary tract has a microbiome. And so when you take multiple courses, antibiotics, it doesn't just affect the microbiome in your digestive tract. It affects the microbiome in your urinary tract as well. So if you've done repeated courses, have you just created a great environment for all the happy, healthy bacteria that are supposed to be in the urinary tract to exist? So it's possible that you've been over treated with antibiotics and that you actually need some other good bacteria to be added back. And then the other thing that I think gets missed a lot with urinary tract infections is that what that they do repeat culture. And the first time it was E. coli, it was some overgrowth of a particular bacteria. But then when they repeat there was no longer any the testing, that's no longer positive for a bacterial overgrowth. And if that's the case, sometimes it's really yeast. You have a yeast infection in your urinary tract. So then the treatment is different and that's why they backed the antibiotics didn't work. You need an antifungal herbal or prescription. And then the other thing that I would like to add to this is check your. So sometimes there's not an infection there and it's your urinary is just too acidic and it's actually causing all the symptoms of a urinary tract infection. But there is no urinary tract infection. And you can check this with the urinary tract strips at home. You can look at your old tests, urinary tests. You're under analysis that they were looking for the infection in the first place and see what it is. It should be six point five to seven point five. If it's below that six point five, it might be that it's too acidic and you need more vegetables to increase your urinary age. And then that might actually help those symptoms as well. And then the two groups of supplements that I usually suggest people looking at when they have urinary tract infections that are occurring all the time is, like I said, probiotics. So there are urinary tract specific probiotics. And you can also look at even if you're a male, there are these female specific probiotics that are for national health. But it's actually the same strains of bacteria that are good for the urinary tract health as well. And it's safe for men to take those strains of bacteria as well. And then the second is Cranbury and Demento. So cranberry and prevent bacteria from adhering to the to the walls of that both the intestine and the urinary tract. So then if there is a little bit of overgrowth of yeast or bacteria, it's not a hospitable place for them to to overgrow.
So talk about the cranberry demoness, I don't I don't know what that is, I haven't heard of that myself personally having cranberry juice right now.
So it's a combination product. So you can get demoness all by itself. It's it's it's technically a sugar, but it's not like a sugar sugar that you get from your your food. And what it does is, again, it makes like a slippery slope inside of your urinary tract so that the bacteria can eat here, there and similarly, the country does this work. Similarly, it just makes for a non hospitable place for the bacteria yeast to grow.
How do you spell that D, Dasch and A, N and C, OK, and what you want is those things to preferably to be in a capsule that is acid resistant. So it's like a as to the capsule will make it through your stomach and then it will open up and get the the goodies to where they need to go, because that's the reason why oftentimes, like the over-the-counter cranberry extract, some things like that don't work very well. It's because most of it's being broken down in the stomach itself.
So I had a friend of mine that is a doctor a long time ago when I very first got married, I got like a urinary tract infection, like as soon as like the first week, like, I think on our honeymoon. And then I got another one a couple weeks later and I was talking to a friend about it. And she said to me, she said, OK, I'm going to tell you a trick.
And she said, if at the second that you have sex, you need to go straight to the bathroom immediately, like like it's ridiculous. Like me or my husband, I'll have sex. And it's like I'm not even like he's like, gosh, like I literally run to the bathroom and go to the bathroom.
And I will tell you, I have not yet since I've done that, I have not gotten a urinary tract infection ever again.
That's a good trick. Yes, definitely helpful.
So I don't know if it's if it works, but I know for me that's what I have done. So I don't know if that will help. But that is the one trick that I've done. And I would say that any time I do have if I do feel like maybe I might be getting on a urinary tract infection, I'll get some organic cranberry juice that has no sugar in it. That's just or I'll take the whole cranberries. That's another thing that I'll do in my smoothies. You can put in your smoothie. Whole people forget people are always putting banana and, you know, different things. Try to mix it up. I put like whole unsweetened cranberries and, like, tart cherries in my smoothies. And I feel like whenever I do that, I feel like it just helps. So I'll write this. Next question is from Shannon in Nashua. ND a s h you a I mean, some of these cities I've literally never I did not do well.
I did very good in school. I had straight A's, but I did not do good in geography. Have you ever heard of Nashua and a Chewey? Definitely not. Like where is that. All right.
It says, I've had a lot of inflammation, joint pain and fatigue for about a year now. I cut out gluten about two weeks ago to see if that might be the root cause of my problems. But so far I haven't noticed any change. How long does it take to notice a difference?
Great question. So it depends on what else is really going on with the individual right. So if you are not seeing and so some people will see an improvement with going gluten free in the matter of two weeks. But some people don't. And when they don't, the things that we have to think about is what is the state of their health? How long has their health been compromised? There can be things called where the foods cross react with one another. So even if you took out wheat, you have food sensitivities. And now when the food starts getting broken down in your digestive system, your immune system still gets activated with it looks similar. So things that will cross react with wheat would be all the grains, unfortunately. So all of the oats, all the rice, quinoa, it can be milk products, it can be chocolate, it can be coffee. All those things actually cross react with one another. And so when they're going to announce that your body potentially can say this looks like wheat, we're going to keep on making inflammation. So that's one thing. And then, like I mentioned about the the wheat and dairy with autoimmunity or with thyroid disease in particular, is that there could be this thing called molecular mimicry where it looks like your own tissues. So if you have an autoimmune condition going on, is the food that you're eating still looking like you're looking like your own tissues and you're causing auto antibody production just because of that, so that it wasn't the wheat by itself, it could be a number of other foods. And that's why some people really benefit from doing a proper elimination diet where they take out the top seven foods, the top nine foods, or they do an autoimmune paleo diet. If you have an autoimmune condition, some people do other types of diets like the ketogenic diet or a carnivore diet because they just are reacting to so much that they just need to simplify things to kind of figure out what the heck is my body reacting to. But it's not. So then when you reintroduce food items, it'll become clear. But if you're not making progress with that alone, with the wheat alone, it's probably that we have to look a little bit deeper and dig a little bit deeper. But chances are that there's probably some leakage going on. Whatever you say, the person has chronic has that. There's a chronic inflammatory state, you have joint pain, that sort of thing. You know, there's a reason there's an activation of your immune system and somewhere between 70 and 80 percent of your immune cells, they live right behind that one cell layer, thick wall of your intestine. So if there is some deterioration or irritation of your intestinal lining, then the foot particles can get on through into that space behind there and cause an activation of your immune system and then that activation your immune system is that inflammation and the food particles and food and toxins from our environment that get into our bloodstream. Our body wants to protect us. And so it will go shovel it off to places to hide it. And that can be your joint spaces. That can be your muscles. That can be, you know, even your brain. You can have problems with concentration or memory and whatever else. So those are the sort of things that I start thinking about when someone has tried gluten free and that's not working and they still have all these symptoms, it's time to dig deeper.
All right, this next one's from Debbie Debbie in New Haven. I'm a 48 year old woman and have just been feeling off for the last couple of years. I've been tired, depressed and just feel achy all the time. My doctor diagnosed me with fibromyalgia about six months ago and put me on Sibella, but it doesn't seem to be helping. Could it be anything else? I think everyone thinks I'm crazy and that it's all in my head.
I'm so sorry. You know, it's really difficult having a condition where it's you can't see anything on paper, right? That's fibromyalgia is that, you know, you have all these pains, but the tests all look negative. So Sibella is an our and it is oftentimes helpful for fibromyalgia and depression, but it does deplete folks of sodium. So if you're on any medication, this is just a tip for anybody who's listening here, who wants to know how their medications are potentially affecting the rest of their body is you can go to a website called Meitav in my eye to my website and why t a mighty the end dotcom might have been. And that Web site, you can type in all of your prescriptions and you can see what nutritional things can be affected by that medication. And so I kind of want to know a little bit more about the timeline here and if things continue to get worse after going on this medication or not. But you can have some increase in some of your symptoms from from having low sodium. But then the other thing about the timing is that you're forty eight years old.
So this happened a couple of years ago. So what's also happening in our letter for days is that there's a hormonal shift. And so those that hormonal shift, as we start making less progesterone, less estrogen, can affect our whole body. And so there can be more bone breakdown that can lead to more toxins in our bloodstream that can cause potentially more aches and pains, that can affect the hormonal shift, can affect the microbiome of your gut. So this there's this intimate relationship of our estrogens with the production of certain strains of bacteria. And then if that happens, that can affect the balance of good microbes in the gut. That can lead to potentially more. But there's just there's there's also the question as to whether or not there are things like constipation that can then increase the the toxic the toxic load in your body, and then that can cause more pains. Even the hormonal shifts, again, can affect your sleep. And we know very well have known for about four to five years from studies back in the 70s that sleep deprivation or getting inadequate deep sleep can affect pain. And you can actually induce fibromyalgia in college students by forcing them to stay awake. The studies would never be approved anymore. But so there are so many things here that it could be that I definitely would need more history to know what else it could be. But those are the sort of things that start to come to mind with a bit of history, as I know.
OK, this next question is from Anonymous.
This one just came in. I am in college and I'm starting to have sex with multiple people. I'm being wild and a lot of fun, but now something feels off. I was changing out of my clothes and caught a whiff of something different down there. And I thought I knew myself pretty well, intimately and all of my bodily sense. My vagina naturally has a certain smell. It always does. And I know that smell is based on this certain age of my vaginal discharge because I'm currently taking a chemistry class and that talks about that is a scale of acidity.
Anyway, what do you think is going on?
I'm sorry, did I say you need to go to your doctor? I need to go get a culture gotten simple as that is. I don't know if you're having protected sex, unprotected sex or not, but semen will change the age of your vagina. And then obviously there's things like sexually transmitted diseases and that sort of thing that you want to make sure that you're that you don't have any of those things going on. And even like we were talking about before, is that if there is. You're having a lot of unprotected sex and there is a lot of semen that your exposure some people in your vagina can get can change, and that can make again for a hospitable environment for your natural Florida flora. So then you can have this bacterial imbalance from that. So I don't really know. I definitely need to go see your physician and have a culture done and see what else is going on there.
All right. This next one is from Anna in Medford. I'm a busy single mother of two young kids. I've had anxiety since college. But in the last few years, between the stress of school work, sports and other activities, it's gotten much worse. I take Ativan as needed, but I don't like how groggy it makes me feel. Is there a natural way to help my anxiety without taking medicine?
Yes, always. I always try and push like the lifestyle stuff first, you know. So if you're feeling overwhelmed, you're probably got a little too much on your plate and that's going to elevate your cortisol levels. And if your cortisol is elevated all the time, it can affect your sleep.
So that would be the other question I have is how is your sleep quality or sleeping through the night? Because then it just becomes this vicious cycle that we get in where we have high stress all day long. Your body has a hard time turning off that stress and then you are going to have difficulty sleeping. A is an exciting medication, but this particular anxiety medication also depletes your melatonin. And so melatonin is the hormone that allows us to stay sleep at night. So cortisol is what allows us to stay awake during the daytime. And so when we wake up in the morning, our cortisol will go up and then we'll stay relatively even throughout the day. And then around seven o'clock it starts coming down between seven and nine. It starts coming a little bit faster so that by between nine and 11, we're sleepy and your body has gotten the trigger to go ahead and start producing melatonin. So if you're taking these sorts of medications on a regular basis, it can affect your melatonin production and that can affect your sleep quality. And then again, you're going to just have these elevated levels of cortisol and long term, then your proposal might start to peter out or happen at the wrong time of the day. The things that you can do that could improve your sleep quality are things like cutting back on screen time before bedtime, using blue light, blocking glasses, doing breathing techniques, listening to a guided meditation and all of that. All that stuff is relatively inexpensive or even free. And then there's a Doctor Jones. There's herbal adaptiveness, things like rodeo, passionflower, you know, different types of medicinal mushrooms like Reishi. There's even other herbs that are helpful for autoimmunity as well. Like Oshawa, Gonda is another one. There's lots of herbs and mushrooms out there that can be helpful to help pull down some of that chronic symptoms of chronic stress. But the other things that I always think about because I'm a functional medicine practitioner, is that why are you experiencing besides the lifestyle stuff that could be causing stress, is that what chemistry do you have going on within your body that may have set you up for this since you said that this has been going on pretty much the vast majority of your life. So in order for your body to make the cool the the neurotransmitters that allow you to chill out, so dopamine, serotonin, et cetera, you need particular amino acids and any particular B vitamins. So that's where I would look on them. Testing is to see do you have adequate amounts of these things in order for your body to make the relaxing neurotransmitters? And again, even that with that serotonin stuff is that serotonin, the vast majority is making that. So is your gut digestion going well so that you can produce enough serotonin? And the number two is that serotonin is a precursor for making melatonin. So again, is that all happening the way it's supposed to so that you can get an adequate amount of sleep, a deep sleep at night time?
Awesome last question, Devin. Devon from Madison, I'm a thirty five year old woman who's always been pretty healthy and thin in the last year, I've gained some weight. It's not a lot about seven pounds, but it's enough to make me feel uncomfortable and I can't seem to lose it. Why can I shed these extra pounds? Is there anything I can do?
So what can the general like to give someone like Top Three Tips and you're very thin, so kind of what are some of your secrets to stay so slim?
Sleep I sleep is not always enough for one. So like people always like, oh, I've always been active. And the more I exercise, the more it seems like I can't lose this extra weight. It could just be your cut. Your stress chemistry is too high. You're actually doing too much and your body is feeling it. And so if your stress hormones are elevated, then your body's not going to it's a good time to lose weight and your body is going to hold on to it. Right. So again, that's what I say is like, you know, first get your food and get your sleep in check. You need seven and a half hours of good quality sleep. You can lose weight. And these studies have been done simply by getting adequate sleep. So that would be number one. Number two is nutrition, you know. So then I would just do like a you know, a look at what is it then I'm eating in what quantities and what time, you know, so this is where intermittent fasting can be effective. That just like you identified in your own history, that, first of all, you did was just change the timing that you were eating and giving your digestion a break. It can make it more efficient if your body actually more insulin sensitive so that you're utilizing the foods that you're eating well and your body doesn't create this inflammation and think that it needs to hold on to excess weight. And then once you have that, you're able to do that. And looking at the quality of the food that you're eating and focusing on the micro nutrient macro nutrient density of your foods. So looking at how many packaged foods that you're eating, processed foods are treating and eliminating as many as those as we possibly can.
And that, you know, the other thing is that then the exercise is just augmenting your life, that it's not a burden know. So are you looking at all the things that you're doing as your stressor? So if your exercise is now turned into this thing that you have to do to maintain your weight, you might actually have to take a step back and actually stop what you're doing. So that's where then I would say is testing can be very helpful to help you identify this. So adrenal stress testing can be helpful to see what's going on there. That may be the amount of exercise that you're doing is actually causing you to not be able to lose weight.
So those are the sort of things that I would start like, well, where can our listeners go to follow you and your work?
Yeah, so I happen to be the only lazy Chantel in the world. If you Google me, you'll find me at my website is Dr. Lisa Chantel dot com.
And I will say this. Your website is absolutely gorgeous. You guys have to go visit it to go look at it. And I think most people there picture that they have of themselves when you see them, their pictures usually prettier than than what they look like in person. And I think you're the opposite. I think your pictures pretty on the website, but I think you're gorgeous in person. So, yeah, I think that you should update some of those pictures because I think you're prettier in person then even in your pictures. I think they are great as well. And your website is gorgeous. Well, thank you so much for being on the show. It's been an absolute pleasure to have you on. And if you have a question that you want answered, go to questions at Chantel Ray. Com.
We'll see you next time. Bye bye.