Episode 80 Jennifer Franchak
Julie: [
00:00:00] Well, good morning. I am so glad, that this is gonna work for us to record this today. Jennifer and I have had some technical challenges getting this podcast recorded. However, what I would say is I really do believe that these recordings happen When they're meant to happen, the conversations will go where they're gonna go, and we're kind of living real, mom moments, internet down, kids at home sick, et cetera.
So. Exactly. Exactly. Living on the edge of podcasting while we're doing it. thank you for being here We're gonna talk a lot today about functional nutrition, and one of the things that I think would be good to start with is what is functional nutrition?
Jennifer: That's a great question. so functional. Nutrition is really, it's based on the functional medicine model, which sounds really pretentious. But what I love about the functional medicine model is that it's looking at how all of your body systems are functioning together. How they're all working together.
So, if you go to your doctor's office and you have an issue with your thyroid, you'll probably be referred [
00:01:00] to an endocrinologist, right? they just handle those issues. Hormonal issues and things like that. If you, have a different issue, you'll go to a cardiologist.
In functional medicine, we look at the whole picture together. and in functional nutrition, there's a nutritional focus, but we're looking at how we can optimize what you're eating and what you're putting in your body, and also your wellness and your lifestyle habits, in order to make sure that all of your body systems are functioning in the best way possible so that you're healthy.
Does that make sense?
Julie: it does, and it's actually funny timing that we're having this conversation because yesterday, my daughter got introduced to the, Magic School bus. Do you remember that
Jennifer: show. Yeah. I
Julie: The Magic School Bus? Yeah. And it happened to be this one where it talked about your digestive system and the magic school bus flew into another kid's mouth and like they went through the whole, you're chewing and then it's going into the intestine and your stomach and all this stuff.
And my daughter who's four was so. Curious about it. She's like, well, what do you mean? Like, where's my food now? [
00:02:00] And we got into this whole conversation about what food does for your body.
And so I love actually the, the timing of that because our nutrition, the food that we put in our body literally impacts every aspect of what's going on
Jennifer: I love the Magic School bus. I'm a big fan. I try to get my kids to watch it, but now they're a little older, so they're not as interested. But I have a bunch of the books, But I love that idea because I think that education is so important when it comes to, when we wanna heal, when we want our bodies to function better.
and I just wanna put out there, I'm not against the, the doctor in conventional medicine, but the way that conventional medicine operates is a little bit different. Than the way that functional medicine operates. And I think they both have their place.
but I think, when we go to the doctor, the doctor's busy usually. So the doctor will listen and, give us maybe a prescription, but there's not a lot of time usually for the doctor to educate about those things. Like if you go to the doctor with a digestive issue.
He or she is not always gonna have time to break it down, in ways that we understand well what actually is happening with our [
00:03:00] body. And I think that's a piece that's missing, from conventional medicine that's so important where we fill the gap when it comes to functional medicine.
And I try to fill that gap in functional nutrition, because I think it's so important for people to understand, okay, well I have Hashimoto's or I have, celiac disease, or I have this issue, with my digestion. Okay, well, do you understand why that's happening? Like, let's break this down, let's talk about this.
we need that too as adults. we need the magic school bus explanation. Sometimes we need to understand the why behind, what's going on with our bodies.
Julie: Well, and I, like what you, just brought up as well, is that it gets a little complicated when all you do is go to the doctor and you're talking about the what. But to your point, you're not necessarily talking about the why. And so then when we're left to fill in that information on our own, we're inundated with so many different things out there, right?
you go to the grocery store and you're like, okay, I know that I need to make the quote unquote. Good choices or the right choices, but what are those? Or if you go past the supplement aisle, I mean they're like [
00:04:00] three aisles full of supplements how am I even supposed to navigate this when I don't even know, where to even start with assessing what my issue
Jennifer: Exactly. Yeah. And I, and I think too, I think it's important for people to take ownership of their own health so that instead of just sitting back and saying, oh, this is happening to me, and I'm just gonna wait until the next thing happens and maybe I'll have to go on more medication or something.
I, I really encourage my clients to take charge. and part of that is through education, so that they can take ownership. And I, I work with women who have autoimmune disease. And, I think it becomes especially important because I have to learn what's going on with your body. 'cause I've had people come to me, one client comes to mind who came to me, who's diagnosed with celiac disease, and she told me, you know, I got a diagnosis.
My doctor handed me, a sheet, like just a, a piece of paper about celiac disease and said, okay, you need to go gluten-free. she had no clue how to do that. She didn't even know what foods had gluten, what foods didn't have gluten. So, we needed to start with the basics and [
00:05:00] take that time to educate.
Because, it's one thing to, like you said, to get, the what and get told, this is what you have. But it's another thing to really understand, okay, well this is how we need to manage things moving forward.
Julie: Yeah, exactly. And we're so disconnected, I think from, food and what is in our food anymore. You know, I, I mean there's so many buried ingredients and there are things too that are called or go under multiple different names. And so then you have to start digging into that. And then it's also too, the way that our food is processed and, again, the more removed we are from.
How our food is created and what specifically is in our food. When you are given that kind of diagnosis it's so much more complex than just, well, here, here's a slip of paper. And, and to your point with this client, like just cut out gluten.
Jennifer: definitely. And so, yeah, I think even just, the act of reading a label. can be so beneficial because like you said, we're not always aware of what exactly is in the food that we're just grabbing. we might be like, oh, I want this, snack or that snack.[
00:06:00]
Okay, well, do you know all the stuff they put in this snack? my kids get really irritated with me because I'm always like, oh, did you read the label? Did you check? you don't wanna. Become obsessive about what you're eating, But I think you should be educated, about what you're putting into your body.
okay, well right now I'm eating something that's, maybe has a whole long list of ingredients and it's not gonna be the best for me. So I'll just have like a little bit of that and try to focus on the things with fewer ingredients.
Julie: And I definitely wanna hear more about how you approach parenting and those food conversations. one question I have though first is When someone is trying to get a grasp on, functional nutrition and making sure that their systems are more aligned and working properly, where aside from maybe like a specific diagnosis, where is usually the first place that. You start,
Jennifer: that's a good question. I mean, it really varies from person to person, but I would say an overall, average, if I'm looking at most of my clients, where we usually start is with their digestion because most [
00:07:00] clients come to me, and they're not eliminating on a regular basis, which is really.
Not good for their, body's detoxification. because when you're not going to the bathroom regularly, you're reabsorbing those toxins, you're reabsorbing hormones. and it can be really detrimental for your body and for your healing process, especially with the population I work with, which are women who are, struggling with autoimmune diseases and are having, chronic flareups.
And symptoms. We want to try to stop those flare-ups as soon as possible. That's the goal. One of the things that, I see time and time again are people that will come to me and say, yeah, I'm only going maybe twice a week. And so we, that's something that we always. Start with is just regulating that and we do functional medicine testing to really get a good picture of what's going on inside of their gut microbiome.
I'm kind of a nerd about that stuff. I love to read about those things. But that's, that's usually where we start. And then we start shifting based on the testing and based on something that I do called a functional wellness analysis where I look at [
00:08:00] their whole health history, even back to when they were a baby.
You know, were you breastfed? Were you bottle fed? Like, we look at the whole big picture and then I kind of take all of those factors into play and then, Put together a wellness plan. So we start making changes to their nutrition and their lifestyle, but in a way that's manageable for each person.
I would never want somebody to feel overwhelmed. But the people that come to me are usually like, okay, I, I'm at my breaking point and I need these flareups to stop because I need to live my life. but definitely digestion is, One of the u usual starting places
Julie: that's so fascinating that you go back as far as, were they breastfed or were they bottle fed? Like, the gut microbiome is not just any single moment in time, like how it exists today. It's, been allowed to, operate the way it's operating because of your entire history.
Not just, where you're at right now, at 35 or whatever age you're at.
Jennifer: Exactly. Yeah. And the, and the neat thing about that in particular is that it can change, you can change, your microbial [
00:09:00] population say that you have. an overpopulation of a pathogenic or bad bacteria.
And that could be contributing to your flareups or to your symptoms. you can change that not just by taking a probiotic, but through your diet. And the interesting thing is that those little microbes that live in your gut. Actually have preferences about what they eat. So they like certain types of fibers.
And we can look at, what are you eating? Here's the type of, microbes that you have inhabiting your gut. you're really underpopulated with this type of microbe that would really benefit your health. And here's what this type of microbe thrives on. it might be a certain compound that you get in certain vegetables.
So then we can say, okay, we're gonna bring in more of these vegetables and try to bring this population up. and also some strategic supplementation, but it's not just about supplementation. It's about, again, what we're eating and all of those things. and that's what I love about looking at things in a functional medicine model is that we're not just focusing on.
One thing at a time. We're looking at the big picture, and like what you said, even going back to what were you [
00:10:00] breastfed or bottle fed? it gives me an idea of, okay, this could be an issue for you based on your history and we need to focus on these things. Does that make sense?
Julie: it makes a lot of sense because again, you're talking about a whole person, your history and your present day, both, matter. When you're talking about collectively how your systems are working together and what might have contributed to. Where you're at today.
And to your point, when you're talking about your, your functional health or your functional nutrition, you're talking to somebody about all of your systems, not just any one thing I'm curious from a female perspective.
How much of it comes into play too with where you're at, especially in, midlife like if you're perimenopausal, menopausal, postmenopausal. I'm assuming that's also going to play a pretty significant factor, would it not?
Jennifer: definitely. I mean, again, going back to the autoimmune people that I see hormones can definitely play a big role. Like our hormone shifting can play a big role in seeing the flare-ups, [
00:11:00] maybe sometimes getting a little worse or things changing.
when you throw in. Perimenopause which is kind of like the stage that I'm approaching now, which is so much fun. when you throw those things in, sometimes it's like, a puzzle. You have to take things apart and be like, okay, well, is this your hormones leading to this issue?
Is it a combination of your hormones and like your gut health? Because it just adds another layer. To kind of analyze there. when our hormones are changing, it definitely can play a role in, an increase in flareups and symptoms. Sometimes our hormones can become imbalanced as we're getting older because our estrogen levels are changing, our progesterone levels are changing and sometimes we can have, an increase in one type of.
Hormone and a decrease in another. may have heard the term estrogen dominance. we may not have really high estrogen levels, but when we're looking at our estrogen in correlation to our progesterone, it may be much higher than our progesterone.
So we're dominant in estrogen, and that can lead to a lot of. Symptoms as well. it's just kind of like playing around with different things we can [
00:12:00] do with our, diet with supplementation, but also coming back to digestion again, getting our digestion functioning properly and eliminating on a regular basis is really important here because if we're reabsorbing those hormones that can wreak havoc on our system.
Julie: I get that it's different for everybody, but approximately how long does it take for a change. To actually be noticeable as to whether or not it's working or not.
Jennifer: I feel like I say this all the time, but it, it depends on the person. And it depends on how long sometimes they've been suffering with these symptoms. if you've been diagnosed with something for 20 years. It might take you a little longer to start seeing changes, but honestly, most of the clients that I've seen they start to see changes fairly quickly.
I have one client who came to me and she was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis, which is a pretty, pretty nasty autoimmune condition that can affect your spine and, your mobility. And Going back to digestion. She had been struggling with really severe constipation for years.
[
00:13:00] And was, Maybe going once or twice a week. We had done testing, I looked at something called a GI map test for her, which I do with all my clients, where we're really looking at what's going on inside of your gut microbiome.
And so with that information we were able to Get her on a strategic supplement protocol, but also she started making specific nutritional changes and she texted me and she's like, oh my gosh, like I'm going to the bathroom. Like, this is so exciting. Like, I know this is probably a topic that you might be like, oh my gosh, this is weird.
Why is she talking about this so much? But it just, it makes such a difference in your health. That's one thing, that just makes such a big difference. When you're eliminating those toxins, and things are moving, and then suddenly she's like, oh my gosh, I'm not bloated like I've been for so long and I, I'm not having the pain that I was having.
So it really depends on each person. But I would say most of my clients, it's within a couple of weeks, one to two weeks, they start seeing some changes. They're not gonna see everything resolve in one or two weeks, but they start [
00:14:00] seeing some changes. And that's always exciting. 'cause I mean, let's face it, when we are making these big changes, it's hard.
But when you see like what I'm doing is affecting how I'm feeling, that motivates us to keep going.
Julie: it's not strange that you're talking about it, and I don't, I don't know if that's because I am a mom of a younger kid. when you're parenting young kids, babies, toddlers, you think a lot about poop and
Jennifer: True.
Julie: elimination and are they peeing enough? Did they soil enough diapers?
And even though my daughter's now potty trained and all of that,
Jennifer: Yay.
Julie: You're still thinking about it, like you're still talking a lot about it. Do you need to go to the bathroom? and you are paying attention to how often they're pooping or if they're constipated and it's hard for them to pass stool, et cetera.
So I don't know. I don't personally find it that weird to talk about it because I think I'm just very much still in it and my daughter talking a lot about those things. So it's all good to talk.
Jennifer: I think you're absolutely right. 'cause I, I know before I had kids, I probably never, ever talked about those things. It was like taboo. And now I'm just [
00:15:00] like, my oldest is 14 and if I bring up that kind of stuff, she's just like, oh my gosh. Like, why would you talk about that? And I'm like, it's no big deal.
I'm like, how many times did you go today? And she's just like, don't talk about this.
Julie: It's a hazard of mom's job, but yeah. but what's. Also interesting about that though is, that as we get older, unless we are in a job like you, you do, I think, kind of stop thinking about that as much and then we definitely stop thinking about it for ourselves and then we just sit here and suffer in silence over something that had somebody.
continued to pay attention to that. For us, they would've been like, wow, this is a little bit of a red flag, and you probably could have caught it a long time ago. Versus just being like, oh, well now I'm just constipated all the time, and now I just have to deal with how uncomfortable that makes me feel.
Or like bloating or whatever. it is interesting to me that we, you sort of just stop. Thinking about that at some point in time and paying attention to that and, and thinking about the fact of like, but that still matters. Like that isn't just a little kid [
00:16:00] thing.
Jennifer: Right. And, and I think, one of the concepts that I, learned when I went back to school for functional nutrition that I love is, is the concept of terrain. And that we have the, and understanding your terrain. And what I mean by that is, what we put in our bodies, how we, live, our lives, our lifestyle, everything that we do affects this terrain that we have, this unique terrain that we have inside of our bodies.
So you can think of it as like soil, right? And if you, are planting a garden and, you make sure that the soil is full of, all the nutrients that it needs to grow some plants and grow some, vegetables or whatever the garden does, does really well.
Okay. And when we, bring it back to our body, right? So if you're eating a lot of highly processed foods and maybe you're drinking a lot of soda, maybe you have a lot of stress.
Like, I mean, I think a lot of us mom soup in particular and you have all these factors going on. your soil is not tended to, your terrain is not tended to, and that really can pave the way towards disease and chronic illness and those types of things. So, I mean, I personally, when I kind of made that connection between wow, what, we eat and, [
00:17:00] and our lifestyle and all of these factors can either create an environment for disease or create an environment for health.
It was kind of a, breakthrough for me personally. 'cause I felt like I have control. I mean, I can't control everything, right? sometimes we can be the healthiest people and we can still get a diagnosis with something, but there are so many things that we can control which I think is really exciting.
Julie: I mean, isn't that really what we all want our, answers to our problems, right? And like something that we can do versus just feeling like, well, this is just happening to me. So can you expand on that a little bit more? once you recognize that, how has it Impacted your own health journey, and then how has that impacted how you've parented or the conversations you have or food choices that you make and, whatnot in your, house.
Jennifer: Well, with my own health journey, I had chronic digestive symptoms for my whole life since I was a little kid I was growing up in the eighties and, and I went to the doctor with my mom and he said, oh, it could be you're. Irritable bowel syndrome, but that was it.
There was no real [
00:18:00] plan or, oh, here are the next steps, or this is what you should do. So it was just, that was it. And so I had all these digestive symptoms throughout childhood, and then as I got older as an adult, a young adult and an adult, I had really bad brain fog and I, the symptoms were getting worse and I saw gastroenterologists and they did testing but nothing was ever conclusive.
And they would just say, Hey, everything looks good, but I knew. I was not feeling great. I was having all these symptoms and I wanted to do something about it. So between that and then I had my first baby and I really was like, I looked at her and she's just this little, tiny baby and as the parent you are in total control, what they're eating and everything at that point.
And I just wanted to give her the best foundation possible. So that really kind of motivated me to. Go down the rabbit hole of holistic nutrition and wellness. And I just started reading blogs and reading books and listening to podcasts and watching documentaries and just as much as I could because I wanted to figure out, okay, how can I fix my own issues and how can I give her the best foundation [
00:19:00] possible?
And that's kind of what led me to, to go back to school and study this because I got really excited and, and I changed my diet. I experimented a lot with different things. But finally when I, figured out what worked for me. I started to see my symptoms going away. That was so exciting because I was like, oh my gosh, it's working.
Like what, I'm putting in my body and what I'm doing is having an effect on these symptoms I've had for my whole life. So that's kind of how it's, it's affected me. And, I just wanna put it out there too. I think. People tend to think, at least when you, when you go on YouTube and you watch, different nutritionists and people who say, oh, this is a day in my life.
And, and you see like they start with a green smoothie and everything's perfect and they're doing yoga and maybe that's the majority. I don't know. That's not me. I'm not perfect. I still eat potato chips sometimes and do all those things, but I think it's finding, what works for you, like a framework of what works for you so that you can still live your life and, have some, things that maybe aren't the best for you. But if you know the framework that works for you, you can [
00:20:00] always get back on track and you can always. Make sure that, 80 to 90% of the time you're doing the things that work for you.
So it's not about being perfect and just having this perfect diet. And I've kind of learned that over the years because when I first started going down the rabbit hole, I got really hyper-focused on, oh my gosh, everything has to be organic and we're making baby food.
And, and I think that's great if you can do that. And, if that's in your budget and you can do all organic, if you have the energy to make your own baby food But I've learned over the years to kind of find more balance especially with my kids because you had asked about kids, and, after I was learning different things, we wouldn't get any junk food ever. And, I was very, very careful. when they started going to school, I kind of quickly learned, okay, this is not realistic. Like they have to be exposed to some of these other things too, and just so that they can learn balance.
Julie: I think a lot about how I talk to my daughter about her body and food choices and what makes us feel good. And I mean, she's only four right now, but I also understand that it's gonna start to tie to makeup and [
00:21:00] clothing and all the things. But to your point, like when it does come back to a balanced approach, I think that that's always with anything that you do, it's the healthiest approach. Right? Like, saying to my daughter, Don't wear makeup. You don't need to wear makeup. You're beautiful. Just how you are. Versus it being a conversation of okay, so when you choose to put makeup on, how does that make you feel?
Jennifer: Yeah, I, I, that's such an important topic ' I have four kids, two are boys and two are girls. And the girls one is 14 and and gonna be 15 this year. She keeps reminding me next year I get to drive and I'm like, oh my gosh. And then I have one who's gonna turn 13 in June. So yeah, body image.
Yeah, when I grew up my mom was very very self-conscious about her body and very restrictive with herself about food. And growing up in the eighties, it was all about, everything was low fat. my mom thought, she was trying to be healthy, but it was diet soda and low fat.
This, and, and now we know that stuff is not the best for you. But I grew up with that type of. model of seeing my mom just, really restrict herself and really be self-conscious about her body. And she wouldn't wear a [
00:22:00] bathing suit, when we would go to the beach.
I remember that. and so I've, really tried to be different for my girls. And I've really tried to focus on having conversations about finding that balance. Like it's okay, if you're gonna have some, Cheetos or whatever, that's fine.
But like, try to temper that like by adding in some vegetables sometimes. I try to have conversations with them so that it's not about restricting, like, oh, you can't ever have that. 'cause I know that's how I grew up. And when I went to college, I totally went, Crazy. And I, would just buy Oreos and, I just would eat as much as I could because I grew up being restricted and that's obviously not healthy either. So I really tried to shift that focus with my girls and focus on you wanna enjoy your food, but it's also fuel for your body and you wanna feel good and you wanna make sure that you're getting your.
Healthy fats and fiber and proteins and some green things on your plate. So that we're just not eating a hundred percent candy, which is kind of the phase they're in now, where it's, every time we go to the store they're like, I'm gonna buy this candy. I'm like, are you sure [
00:23:00] you want all that candy?
But, you're right. It's so tough. 'cause you never, want to say anything that would. Make them feel like they have to restrict or lead them to having some kind of, body image issue I always try to think about those things.
It's tough with
Julie: Yeah. it is. And, and I've had so many people, especially the, moms that are beyond this stage, right? Like they have adult children now. They always tell me Intention is just what matters. At the end of the day, you tried to do what you thought was right at the time, and then you have to let everything else go because you're never going to do all of it perfectly.
And I've had to tell myself that. More than once. Yeah. Yeah.
Jennifer: Do a little better maybe than our parents did. I mean, no matter who your parents were, I think everybody says, oh, I, I need to work on that or do a little better. But like you said, nobody's perfect. I just hope that I don't put my kids in therapy someday. That's my, prayer. But um, there's definitely things that they've told me like, oh, when I have kids, I'm not gonna do it this way, the way you did it.
So, I think it's just kind of being humble too, and [
00:24:00] trying to say, okay, I'm sorry. I need to do a little better. sometimes, you know.
Julie: and also understanding too that it's, Kids trying to have control or autonomy in their lives in ways that no matter what we do as parents, they're always going to want to do something the opposite of us, and that's their way of exerting who they are as a person. And, and two, I think with parenting or even For ourselves, whether we have an auto autoimmune disorder or we just received a recent diagnosis. You just need to do your best with the information that you have at the time. Like even for our parents, they knew what they knew at the time and they were also probably parenting very different from how they parents parented, right? Like they just had access to easy foods and to food. That took a lot off their plates and. Moms, were going to the workplace en mass And so I, find it interesting as well as we think about health, it morphs over time too with, the challenges that we're also facing from a, an economic perspective, a [
00:25:00] workplace perspective, a gender perspective, all of those things come into play too,
Jennifer: exactly. I think, I think if you look at it almost like it's an evolutionary process, like we're always evolving as people I learned early on, years ago when I was.
Getting into all this stuff. I plugged into just one way of eating for a while and like I was really into the paleo diet and I thought, okay, this is the only way that works for everybody because it's the best way. And, and it was working for me. so, I just felt like, oh, this is the best way for everybody.
But I've learned over the years that that's not the case. And, there are things like. Eliminating processed food is generally good for most people. But what I've learned is it's an evolutionary process of, new scientific studies come out, you learn new things and learning how to pivot and learning how to adapt and say, Hey, maybe I should be bringing beans back into my diet, which are not paleo.
cause they're really high in fiber and they're really good for me. So Learning how to pivot, but also experimenting. I think a big part of my process when I work with clients and I try to teach them is like the process of self experimentation, [
00:26:00] which instead of just saying, okay, this is what you're gonna do, this is the diet you have to follow for the rest of your life.
It's like, okay, let's. play around with taking this out. Let's see how you feel when you take this, gluten out of your diet. Let's, play around with bringing more of this food in. Let's see how it makes you feel. And let's write down these observations so we can kind of track it in a analytical way.
I think that's really important, just, being open to experimenting and seeing if something works, something doesn't work. And if it doesn't work, then okay, try something else.
Julie: Wow. Well, Jennifer, 30 minutes would not even be close to, touchy the amount of knowledge that you have so for anyone that is listening that is, thinking like, wow, I. actually really would like to work with someone that can help me start to dip my toe in the water and make some little changes and do that evaluation of whether or not this is working for me.
Where would the best place be for someone to find
Jennifer: Sure. So the best place would be my website, which is jennifer franche.com. I have a free autoimmune harmony roadmap, which is [
00:27:00] great because it, it's gonna give you the starting steps that you can start to work on to calm your flareups. yeah, that's where I would recommend getting started.
Julie: Perfect. And I will be sure to link that free guide in the show notes as well so that people can just jump right, into that. And thank you so much for being on the podcast today. I'm glad that we were able to dive into this conversation specifically, right after the Magic School bus episode, it was like perfect timing.
So thank you so much.
Jennifer: you for having me. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you.
