77 | How trauma and autoimmune disease impact recovery with Caitlin Higgins

On today’s show we’re chatting with Caitlin Higgins of Nerdy Nutritionist, a new licensed nutritionist who is talking about her health journey with mysterious symptoms, food sensitivities, intestinal permeability, and how she figured it all out. We’re also talking about her experience of disordered eating, from skipping meals, bingeing and purging to orthorexic behaviors of doing multiple whole30’s, sugar detoxes and obsessing over steps on her fitbit, and how she started to get out of it. We’re also talking about finding the MIDDLE GROUND here. This is the elusive no man’s land that exists for many people who are dealing with chronic health conditions that may necessitate a therapeutic diet or some kind of food restrictions to prevent flare-ups or serious symptoms with an autoimmune disease (Caitlin has Hashimoto’s and Eosinophilic Esophagitis), BUT they also also have a history of chronic dieting, over exercising, orthorexic behaviors all the way to disordered eating or eating disorders.

This is really tricky because not only it is a complete trial and error process, really hard to get to, but it’s going to look SO different for every person depending on their background, specific health issues or autoimmune conditions, the severity of your symptoms, etc. Throw another (massive, debilitating) wrench in the equation if you have ever experienced some kind of trauma. For Caitlin, it was not only the stress of moving to a foreign country, away from home, and some bad breakups, but losing her only sibling to opioid overdose. We’re chatting about how trauma and autoimmune disease impacted her recovery and the most helpful resources she used to help get through these tough times.

Today we’re chatting about:

Caitlin’s health journey with mysterious symptoms, food sensitivities, intestinal permeability, and how she figured it all out
What made her decide to want to become a nutritionist (vs. RD, health coach, any of the other nutrition certification programs out there)
A primer on leaky gut & intestinal permeability and their most common causes
The impact of exercise stress on the digestive system and blood sugar
From skipping meals, bingeing and purging to orthorexic behaviors of doing multiple whole30’s, sugar detoxes and obsessing over steps on her fitbit
Getting diagnosed with Eosinophilic Esophagitis and Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, and how to balance necessary therapeutic protocols without falling back into disordered behaviors
Our opinion of eating “clean” and the morality of saying “I eat clean”
How trauma and loss of a close family member can impact your health