When Your Body Starts Going Backwards...

Have you ever reached a point where it felt like your body was suddenly going backwards, reacting to everything and responding to absolutely NONE of your effort?

Things like - the foods you used to eat without thinking about it suddenly leave you bloated. Your skin starts acting up. You feel inflamed, puffy, exhausted or uncomfortable after meals. You’re gaining weight at an alarming rate with no real habit change. And maybe you've even developed new environmental sensitivities, your digestion feels unpredictable and you keep removing things hoping this will finally be the thing that makes you feel better…but nothing clicks.

This is something I hear from women all the time, especially in midlife.
And it’s something I experienced personally, too.

In my late 30s, I reached a point where my body seemed to start reacting to almost everything. I was dealing with severe bloating, skin reactions, inflammation, food sensitivities and significant weight gain. Like so many women, it would have been easy to assume that maybe food was the problem? Or maybe just my hormones were the problem? But eventually, I realized there was SO MUCH MORE happening underneath the surface.

Instead of constantly asking, “What food do I need to remove?”
I started thinking about, “WHY and WHAT is causing my body to react this way in the first place?”

When certain foods, products or things in your environment consistently make you feel terrible, removing them temporarily can absolutely be helpful. But elimination alone doesn't address why your body became so reactive.

This is where women can get trapped in an endless cycle. You remove gluten. Then dairy. Then eggs. Then high-histamine foods. Then FODMAPs. Before you know it, your list of “safe things” keeps getting smaller while your body doesn't necessarily feel any more resilient.

The goal shouldn't simply be to create a smaller and smaller diet.
The bigger goal is to understand what changed within the body that may be contributing to those reactions.

What I didn’t understand - that I now understand so clearly - is how the gut and the immune system are always communicating. One does not function without the other. So, your gut isn't simply responsible for digesting food. It's part of an incredibly complex ecosystem that communicates with your immune system, nervous system, hormones and overall metabolic function.

And when that ecosystem becomes disrupted? Your overall tolerance can change.

Things like changes in the gut microbiome, impaired digestion, intestinal barrier dysfunction, infections, medications, chronic stress, poor sleep, nutrient deficiencies, blood sugar dysregulation and environmental exposures may all influence the bigger picture. And then we add midlife into the equation. WOOF.

You pair all of the above with hormonal shifts during perimenopause and menopause (which drastically affects the system as well) and all of a sudden foods, stressors or environments you tolerated perfectly well for years suddenly seem to affect everything differently.

I unpack this concept in Episode 240 of my podcast - Empowered in Health - talking most about the importance of looking at the body's overall terrain.

Think of your terrain as the internal environment your body is operating within.

How well are you digesting and absorbing nutrients?
What does your gut microbiome look like?
How is your immune system functioning?
How much stress is your nervous system carrying?
Are your hormones shifting?

Oh - and our history matters big time, too. Anything from previous infections, antibiotic use, medications, restrictive dieting, years of under-eating, chronic stress, pregnancies, environmental exposures and major life transitions….they can all become pieces of a much larger puzzle!

That doesn't mean every symptom requires an enormous list of tests or an overly complicated protocol. It means we need to always think holistically about symptoms we’re experiencing.

Midlife doesn't necessarily “break” your body. But hormonal changes combined with years of accumulated stress is the exact combination that exposes areas where your body has been compensating for a very long time.

Maybe you could get away with sleeping five hours a night in your 20s.
Maybe you could skip meals, drink coffee until noon, do intense workouts daily and still feel great.
Maybe your digestion wasn't perfect, but it wasn't bad enough to get your attention.

Then you enter your late 30s or 40s and suddenly it feels like your body has changed the rules. But what’s really happening? Your body simply has less capacity to compensate and tolerate the BS any longer.

This is why adding another restrictive diet, harder workouts or an enormous supplement protocol isn't the answer. Because when your body starts to get to a place where it’s reacting to everything - more and going harder isn’t the answer. Instead - it’s about slowing down and thinking through….

How do we build a body that is more resilient?

If you've reached a place where your body feels unpredictable, I want to encourage you to start thinking.... “Why has my body lost tolerance in the first place?”

That question opens the door to a completely different approach to your wellness.

As mentioned, in Episode 240 of Empowered in Health: “It’s NOT Food Sensitivities; Understanding the Gut–Immune Connection” - I share more of my own experience with becoming increasingly reactive in my late 30s and explain why gut health, immune function, hormones, stress, sleep, nutrition, environment and your personal health history all deserve a seat at the table when you're trying to understand what your body is telling you.

If you've been cutting out more and more foods but still don't feel like you've gotten to the bottom of why your body is reacting, tune in HERE on Apple for more…