63. Stress, Sugar, Hormones and Gut Health: Functional Nutrition with Victoria Peck-Gray, Part 1

In this episode, I visit with Victoria Peck-Gray, a functional medicine dietitian and founder of Wonderfully Made Nutrition. Victoria shares her insights on overcoming resistant weight loss, balancing hormones, and restoring gut health through a functional medicine approach. With a focus on personalized nutrition, advanced lab testing, and targeted supplementation, she explains how nourishing our bodies can unlock their potential for optimal health. Tune in to learn about root-cause wellness and transformative health strategies.

 Find out more about Wonderfully Made Nutrition:

website: www.WonderfullyMadeNutrition.com

Instagram: @wonderfullymade.rd

Transcript

Monica: 1:10

Welcome to the show, I'm so glad to have you here today.

Victoria: 1:14

Thank you for having me here.

Monica: 1:15

Today we're going to talk about nutrition in regards to fertility, but also nutrition for PCOS. And a lot of it, again, there's some overlap, but tell me a little bit about kind of the framework that you use when you address nutrition in regards to women's health concerns.

Victoria: 1:31

Yeah. Well, so it's a big topic. And I think that I like to. Really help my clients understand actually what is going on in their body. Instead of just being like, okay, we're, you know, we're gonna, I don't know, get started with a dietary plan. It's like, I really want them to understand how nutrition even plays a role, kind of like the mechanisms underlying all of it. So like how that plays a role in supporting hormone balance, right. And in my experience I have seen that it almost all comes back down to three major areas of concern that have to do with nutrition. And I find that to be blood sugar imbalances, inflammation and nutrient deficiencies. And I think a lot of things can kind of boil back down to those different things. So I think for each woman understanding first the context of their life, where are they coming from? Like, what is their actual history coming into this? Because I think a lot of times women will come to me and they're actually already, Trying to eat healthier now. They've made some changes. I don't think I get anyone who's like, oh, I'm Just decided maybe i'll make a few changes now It's like they usually they're kind of already trying because they've already noticed they've had some issues in their hormones Whether it's they're trying to conceive or they're looking to do that in the future But they've gotten this diagnosis of pcos and they know that that could cause some challenges with that process. So with hormone balance we really don't understand that there's multifactorial obviously there's other medical issues going on too, that need to be addressed, but from a nutrition standpoint, we have to understand that that context of what has happened in their past history that could be contributing to some of these nutritional issues now, particularly blood sugar imbalances. So I'll go over a couple. things here with what I see from people's history. That's really common patterns. And then I can talk about a framework to actually address these things too. But blood sugar balances in particular, I find that a lot of women don't realize that they might have blood sugar issues going on because maybe they go and they get their blood work done. And they just get their fasting blood sugar taken and it looks just fine, or it's in the normal range, but maybe it's on the higher end of that range, but. You know, it's still quote unquote normal. However, they could still be having other ups and downs in their blood sugar kind of all day long. And this could be happening for many, many years without having the diagnosis of prediabetes or diabetes. There could be, insulin resistance kind of rising over time, and that can be contributing to some things. The reason why that's so problematic is That insulin resistance, that is actually a hormone, that's a resistance to the hormone insulin, right? So if we have that going on, that is actually going to contribute to issues at the level of the ovary issues at the level of really any cells in the body too, because all of our cells are trying to accept sugar from the blood. And if there's insulin resistance going on, it's going to be happening all across the body. And it's not just that that's an isolated problem either. It typically means that. The process that happened in the body to even get to the point that we became insulin means we're probably also having other issues at the cellular level, right? There's probably inflammation that has been occurring to even contribute to that insulin resistance. There might be nutrient deficiencies also that might be contributing to that as well, because we need enough nutrients to allow ourselves to bring things in and take them out as well. So as I mentioned, blood sugar imbalances, inflammation, nutrient deficiencies, you start to see that those are actually all kind of interconnected. It's kind of like the chicken or the egg, one of them started the process and it kind of fed into the other ones or vice versa. Are they all happening together? So I think understanding that things have probably been accumulating for a while. And I don't think that that should, make women afraid or ashamed of, what's been going on in the past. We want to get real clear on where we're at now. Cause I think a lot of women find themselves in this moment, being totally confused, feeling very blindsided by their health, feeling like, Oh, it's just. It's kind of just happened to me all of a sudden, like I had no idea that this was going on. Another thing though, too, is if someone hasn't been eating really well balanced for a while, at least in the past. Maybe they're doing better now. However, we have to understand that that past context is probably affecting us now because what I often see with a lot of women is they might have had a past history of maybe it's been disordered eating or just not eating fantastically in the past. Maybe not getting enough protein, not getting enough nutrient dense foods. And then maybe they also have a past of really strong chronic stress. This is, Unfortunately, really common. And, you know, I think everyone kind of can say, Oh, everyone's stressed out. We all have stress, but oftentimes we could see that this chronic stress history, has taken a toll on their body. It has caused cortisol imbalances, which can feed into blood sugar imbalances. Stress definitely depletes more nutrients in our body. We have to use up more nutrients. There's also a lot of changes that happen there. So with the nutrient deficiencies are happening, blood sugar imbalances and then eventually, you know, chronic stress at a chronic level can actually lead to more inflammation. So again, that history there has really led up to this point. And even if someone has like, Oh, well, You know, that was because I had a really crazy job two years ago, and I'm not in that job anymore. That's great. I think that's a really great step to get out of something and, to try to put the origin of that stressor behind us. But now we have to make up for what has happened before, repleting the body and really restoring it back to optimal function. look at a lot about context and people's health history. So I think it matters a lot. And it really impacts what they're doing now.

Monica: 6:51

So a follow up question on that with stress? Because I think that's really vital is that I think so many women say, well, I'm not under stress now, but it was something in my past. What if when they were going through that stressful event, if they were still eating really healthy at that time, if their nutrition was good, does that make any difference as to whether or not that stress impacted them? Or is the stress completely independent of the dietary choices that were being made during that stressful event?

Victoria: 7:16

Yeah, I would say that it probably depends. But it can go both ways. I think if it was really strong stress, there are some things that, you know, just the way that stress impacts the body Like stomach acid production is going to take a hit. We're not going to produce as much stomach acid. Why does that matter? It's like, well, that's like the first, domino of our whole digestion cascade. So that could even impact gut health and then nutrient absorption and a whole slew of gut health issues potentially, even if they were still eating a really great amount of protein, for example, but they're really stressed. It's like, they might not even have enough digestion ability to digest that so I think that stress, if it's really, prolonged and heightened can override even a pretty good balanced diet. But then I think also too, I, you know, I want to look back and say, okay, well, what is balanced? Cause I think that also it's another confusing point for a lot of people too. What does a balance site really look like? And you know, for some they might think it's not having, a lot of fried foods or, you know, desserts or something like that. However, it's not just about what are we not getting, but also are we getting enough of the good stuff? Are we really getting enough antioxidants, for example? How do we know if we're getting those? You know, have we been actually eating enough protein that's really sufficient? Not just mean the bare minimum, but Even enough. So yeah, I think it really depends. I, I would typically find that especially when someone is undergoing stress in their past, unless they were uber intentional about it. I think that typically during a stressful time, nutrition takes a hit too, because of just the lifestyle and behavioral changes that are going on during that time too.

Monica: 8:40

Yeah. For most women, I think there are some stressful events in our lifetime that we can probably look back and, you know, it may not be always that emotional stress, right? Sometimes we have physical stressors, whether that's a pregnancy, whether that's an injury, a significant illness. And so remembering that stress can be all or any of those things. And so stress looks different for everyone. As you look to try and help. start to address some of those foundational issues and try and kind of back up with correcting the stress and the underlying imbalances that are going on. What are some of the needs that people have in order to really be successful with helping to restore and kind of balance their hormones when it comes to their, nutritional health?

Victoria: 9:18

I think it's having a framework in mind to know what is the roadmap ahead is so important because I think, again, we have to really. Help women get clearer on what's going on because I think they come in with so much confusion so much distress about this I like to tell my clients like typically I find that there's three Major categories of needs that we have here. Number one is having The right knowledge. So everything I talked about before just understanding what has been going on, right? So yeah, maybe getting into a little bit of the science with it with them as much as they want to know But even just knowing that like hey blood sugar imbalances might be going on inflammation, What are the signs or symptoms or even lab markers that are, showing up and giving us evidence of these things? Are there nutrient deficiencies? Again, are we doing micronutrient testing for that or am I doing, a really good assessment of their current, dietary intake or, Just kind of inferring from their past too. So again, getting the context, kind of getting the right knowledge and understanding now, it's really helpful. I think it's really empowering for women. A lot of times people say, I just want you to tell me what to do. It's like, yes, I would love to support you in that, but I also want you to understand what's going on. So the right knowledge is a really good first need Then the second step though, I would say it's okay. You know, now that we understand what is going on, How are we going to make changes? How are we actually going to practically do this? And that's when it comes to thinking about how are we going to make this realistic for someone? How is it going to be feasible for them? What are the challenges that might come up during the implementation time of making changes? And that's understanding, what else is going on in our lifestyle? What is our schedule like? Have we made space in our schedule to prioritize these things? I work with so many women and, we're going super deep. We might do functional lab testing. We might do all this kind of cool stuff. But when it comes to then putting a protocol in place, sometimes they're not spending enough time in the week actually meal planning or preparing meals. So we have to really kind of get nitty gritty on like, how can we make that work? How can we find that space in your schedule? so I think really lifestyle adjustments is actually probably a huge piece there And then I would say the third need I'll tell my clients, especially if we're talking about their stress history in our first call. It's like, okay, well, this feels like Pandora's box are going to open up the whole stress thing. Like how do I start to mitigate or manage my stress? It's like, that's typically not the lowest hanging fruit for I think a lot of my clients. Typically we go into more of the nutrition side of things first, but we do have to understand that like at some point, the Mental emotional spiritual side of things that might need to be also addressed And as you mentioned though stress is not always just the mental emotional or spiritual issues going on It could be literally someone was over exercising for years and that could be a real physical stress around their body However for some women if you know the mental emotional side of things Is, leading to some challenges for that. And maybe it's just because they've struggled physically for so long that has actually caused a lot of, mental heartache there for them or emotional heartaches. They just don't know what to do. So I think that area is a need that does need to eventually be addressed. And every woman is going to need to kind of tackle that in their own way. I sometimes support my clients in that. I think it's just pointing out to my clients more so. That there's a really holistic picture that we want to understand here when it comes to their health and understanding that it's going to be multifactorial. especially if they're coming to me for nutrition, maybe they might have this vision of like, Oh, I just need to be given a dietary protocol. It's like, well, there's so much more that we actually need to explore here. That might be impacting you. And it's really great though, because it also gives us so much. Runway for things that we can do to support our health too. It's doesn't just have to be like, oh, I just have to eat this one thing it's like no actually, there's a lot of things we can do throughout the day that can actually support our health too. So I think it's a very hopeful perspective.

Monica: 12:52

Yeah, and I love that and that's part of the reason I wanted you on this podcast was because I love how you look at that big picture. You know, we do a lot of root cause analysis within our practice too. And you know, I always tell women, my goal is not just to help you to lose that 10 pounds and then dismiss you and see you later. Or, if your intention is that you're trying to get pregnant, yes, we want to help you achieve that. But ultimately the primary goal should be improving your longterm health, so that that way, even long beyond when you have that pregnancy, when you've lost that 10 pounds, you're able to sustain that in a way that is meaningful. And that helps you to feel. more whole and feel like I can do this. I can sustain this and I don't need to just be on XYZ medication supplements or whatever. The rest of my life is that there's so much that we can change and adjust just from a lifestyle standpoint. So I love that you get to the root cause of that, which is so important. So talk to me a little bit about you had mentioned earlier on when you're looking at hormone imbalances, you say it kind of comes down to blood sugar, inflammation and nutrient deficiency. So, tell me more about that and why, do you think that's the case? Why have you seen that or maybe some practical examples of where you've seen that in your practice.

Victoria: 13:58

So some of the common issues maybe in terms of how someone is eating a woman comes to me They have PCOS potentially and they're just. really struggling with, weight loss resistance and their cycles are kind of out of whack and they're really looking for support and nutrition and they maybe feel like their energy is really low. They have really strong cravings and they just really feel like they don't know what to do anymore. And maybe they've tried maybe trying to eat less, trying to skip some meals here and there or something. And they're trying to reduce calories and they really feel like there's nothing as budging in their health, even though they think that they're maybe doing some good things to support changing their diet. However, I like to look at that and say, okay, well, what are the core issues I often see when it comes to someone the way that someone's eating? Are we skipping meals? Are we actually not getting enough nutrients? I actually find, a lot of women who are. actually looking for weight loss and feel like it's been a real challenge for them. And I so often find that women are actually under eating still. Or maybe it's they're under eating and overeating at different parts of the day. And it's just causing a real rollercoaster of issues throughout the day, particularly with blood sugar. So I haven't found that under eating can actually be a real issue for a lot of people. I will have people track sometimes and they'll be like, yeah, I'm eating 1200 calories. But their body would really like to be eating maybe 1, 500 to 1, 600 at least. And they're still not losing weight, even on a calorie deficit. So it's like, okay, well, why I'm not creating weight loss? I thought calorie deficits support with weight loss. That's not always the case. So we have to understand, though, if we have nutrient deficiencies going on, we literally cannot properly metabolize foods. That's that's gonna be an issue. And then also blood sugar imbalance is a huge piece of that, too. I'll go into that in a second. But even just on the nutrient deficiency side of things someone's metabolic rate could be Lower because I was like, say, is your body trying to meet you where you're at? If you're telling your body, this is all I'm going to be eating and I'm not going to be giving you enough nutrients in the process. And sometimes some of the foods might be more inflammatory or there might be a lack of anti inflammatory foods. I like to think about that. Our body is just like, you know, we're going to slow things down. And I would like to say your body might turn down the dial 10, 20 percent across your entire body. That means reproduction, digestion, hair growth, whatever it might be, everything just gets turned down a little bit. This is not, a completely scientific way to talk about it, but it's a little bit more of a visual, and if everything gets turned down a little bit, our whole metabolic rate, everything starts to slow down a little bit. We have poor energy. reproduction is not going to be as fantastic. They're going to have some gut symptoms going on. A little bit of everything going on here. And I don't know what to do. So, when it comes to blood sugar imbalances so often it's either under eating going on. But also the way that we're constructing our meals. I think that when women say, oh, well I thought I was balancing my blood sugar because I was not having sugar and I was cutting out added sugar That's not the only thing if anything we can actually have some added sugar And still balance our blood sugar. So like what really goes into constructing what is a really balanced meal. My approach is protein, fat, and fiber, and actually getting enough of those three components at a meal and that can actually slow down that rise in blood sugar. So we have to really get the right context of foods at a meal. Basically, that's the first step I always go into with any of my clients because again, so many people are looking to maybe try to go into something two steps down. And I was like, no, we got to get back to that first foundation of, are you getting enough of these three core things that is going to cause stabilization of your blood sugar? Why do we want that? Well, that's going to help again with hormone balance. We're actually, at least we're not causing undue burden in our body because every time we spike our blood sugar, it's actually a little bit inflammatory and that does cause some issues there. And we also want that blood sugar balance. To support stable energy levels, it does support mood as well. And then it also gives us space throughout the day so that we don't feel like we're constantly having to eat every two hours, which is not actually that supportive for this process. So I actually don't recommend often like a really, really small frequent meals for most women. I actually recommend let's eat a really good amount. That actually fills you up, actually stabilizes blood sugar and gives you enough nutrients and give you enough opportunity to get enough nutrients and then have space between our meals so that we can actually go do other things, live our lives and not have to be thinking about food and having a decision fatigue to open up the whole conversation. What am I going to eat again? Right? So it's actually causing this proper meal spacing. So actually, and doing this process, it's my four method process. Step number one is getting enough protein, fat, fiber. And then step number two is make sure we're getting enough of those. So actually really making sure we're dialing up as much as we can. And then those first two steps allow us to actually get that meal spacing. And then the fourth step is really working on kind of, are we getting enough of really good therapeutic foods? Are we getting enough nutrients within that process? You're kind of fine tuning the process.

Monica: 18:48

So for clients within our practice, if we're looking at blood sugar balance because we realize this is a huge thing, not just for PCOS, not just for weight loss, but many of our clients as they go through getting lab testing, we do a two hour glucose tolerance test. So they're come in fasting, they have a, Big old, either sugary drink or sugar load of some sort. And then we check those levels, over the next two hours. But the difference is, is that we are also checking insulin levels at each of those points along with it. And so that really helps us to pick up some of that insulin resistance, even before that blood sugar is elevated. you know, I think one of the surprising things is that oftentimes people don't realize or don't know that they have blood sugar problems, don't have any signs of insulin resistance. So, if somebody doesn't. feel like they have any problems. What are the other symptoms or signs that they could be looking for that might indicate, Hey, I have a problem with this. I should get evaluated. And then I think the other piece is,, for people that maybe aren't working with our clinic yet, or who haven't had that type of test done, what is a good way to figure out, do I have insulin resistance? Do I have any blood sugar problems?

Victoria: 19:51

This is where we want to really look at how is someone feeling throughout the day? And there's other signs that you could be having blood sugar swings throughout the day, whether or not they're crazy high levels or crazy lows, but there are ways we can understand, suboptimal symptoms that are going on here. The caveat though, I will say is that I think a lot of people just accept When they're not feeling great one of the symptoms would be low energy levels. It's like, well, everyone's kind of running on E, right? You know, we're all kind of running on low energy. We're all trying to get more, you know, caffeine or something. Like everyone in their lives is doing that. Actually, that's not normal though. Like that's common, but not normal. So I would say that If you are struggling to actually keep really good energy levels throughout the day and maybe despite getting You know seven up to nine hours of sleep at night. That would be an issue that would be a symptom of hey blood sugar might not be fantastic throughout the day again because if we have blood sugar, oftentimes that's followed by a low in blood sugar. It might not be a critical low, as in an emergency, but it's low enough that, okay, what other symptoms would that be causing? It's going to cause maybe some cravings. It's going to cause feeling irritable feeling kind of agitated and really just feeling like, I really need to, Eat something or we may need to go get another cup of coffee or something to just kind of give me That little perk, you know in between meals So if we really feel like we need that pick me up in whatever way that is in between meals That's typically a sign now again If someone's like, oh i'm just only giving myself five hours sleep every night because i'm running a crazy schedule All right We have to think about that that could definitely be causing some of the low energy but that could also contribute So actually I would, another thing that would be is if you're not giving yourself enough sleep, but just from your schedule, we know that one night of lack of sleep actually creates, 67 percent of a change in insulin levels the next day, which is pretty incredible. And right now I have a six month old, so I definitely had some lack of sleep in the last six months, but because of that, I know what could happen to blood sugar. I have been, super diligent then with every day and really making sure I'm kind of getting ahead of the game with getting enough protein fat fiber at my meals, really making sure that I'm not having carbs on their own. So I'm not going to spike blood sugar, by not having something else to kind of shield that blood sugar spike. So anyway, there's some symptoms. I will say even waking up at night, a lot of times between like one to 3am and kind of just, It's waking up feeling you have to go to the bathroom during that time. That typically is a sign that cortisol might be spiking at night. And there could be some issues. That's not always the case, but for a lot of people, I do find that that might be a symptom. That's really common. So why would that be happening? It's If we are having blood sugar imbalances throughout the day, that does have an impact on our cortisol levels throughout the day too. And if you know about circadian rhythm or circadian rhythm, it's just kind of like this. Cycle like basically a body clock that we have, and it kind of impacts how everything cycles throughout the day. So maybe we have typically a peak energy in morning to midday, and then the circadian arc kind of naturally declines as the day goes on. Cortisol also kind of follows that arc as well, or should, but if we're having blood sugar imbalances, that could actually be impacting that cortisol output. And then we can actually feel more tired during the day. a little bit more wired at night. Maybe you get that second wind close to bedtime or you're getting that second wind almost in the sense even at night. So that could also be another sign of some blood sugar imbalances too.