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- [00:00]
A
After spending five years exploring every Ms. Diet out there, I found myself exhausted, skeptical, and just plain fed up with food. I constantly felt fearful shame and pure hatred towards the food I ate. I became extremely restricted and attached morality to food. I kept thinking if I could just find the perfect diet or just cut out enough foods, I would feel better. I know I'm not alone in this story because there are so many different Ms. Diets out there being propagated to us. Many have tried them all and have noticed only growing shame and frustration. This topic is such an emotional one for me, and I'm grateful to share my journey with gut health coach William Dickinson. Today, William is going to help me unpack disordered eating, restrictive diets, and and why your gut may be the issue and not the food you're eating. Hello, Ms. Gym family. So glad to start off a new season with a guest that I have been trying to get on this podcast for at least two years now to talk about a potentially controversial topic about Ms. Diet and disordered eating. So, William, thank you so much for joining me all the way from Portugal today.
- [01:21]
B
Thanks for having me again, Jodi. It's really nice to be here.
- [01:25]
A
That's great. So I started my journey with you, William, a few years ago, and I was kind of in a really tough place, obviously with my ms, but also the way I was viewing food and working through that and really living off an extremely restricted diet and certainly not thriving in that community.
- [01:47]
B
I can remember when we first spoke, this was one of the first things that we. We actually started talking about because I was also going through something interesting at this time, and I just had several breakthroughs in my healing journey, and I learned about this sort of, I suppose you could classify as a disordered eating pattern where due to very often fear of adverse consequences, we end up restricting our diets actually beyond the point of what's actually necessary and even. And even helpful.
- [02:17]
A
So do you find most of your clients are those with chronic illnesses? Like for yourself, you suffered for many, many years quite severely with chronic fatigue syndrome. So I'm assuming that in the majority of your clients are also people with chronic illness?
- [02:33]
B
Yeah. So just to kind of give a bit of context for anybody listening, just to kind of get an idea of who I am, where I've come from. So I know obviously today we're here primarily to talk about this in the context of Ms. I've never actually had Ms. Myself, but a lot of the symptoms that I have experienced have a good deal of overlap. So for me, I was I was fully disabled. I was on, I was receiving maximum disability benefits in the United Kingdom and I had a full time carer. So I was completely dependent on another person for my survival. I'm 100% sure if I didn't have that kind of care and support, I, I would be dead. I would not have been able to survive. I could not cook for myself, I could not go to the supermarket. I, I could not function. I had a really restricted diet of about five foods for five years, which is as about as extreme as it gets. The only step further than that you've got is carnivore diet, which is, and I did. It's not that, it's not that I didn't try that. I did, but I actually didn't feel as good doing that as I did with my five food restricted diet. So it's not for lack of trying. I did try but didn't work for me, which is actually quite common. And since then I've made an enormous recovery. I, I think healing is a journey and I don't know if there's ever a finish point because every time I heal a little bit more, the goal posts move and I want more, you know, I want more energy, I want more productivity, more focus. But I also am quite grounded now. I live in the real world. I understand that healing takes time and it's, it's a process. But now I can tell you that I can eat gluten, dairy, My dietary diversity is, is very, very broad. I'm still not 100% of the way there, but I can eat within reason, whatever I want really, without much of a negative consequence whatsoever.
- [04:18]
A
Do you think that's been as much of a mental journey as it has been a physical journey for yourself?
- [04:24]
B
It's definitely a nice blend of both. So one of the core premises of my work. So you asked about my clientele. The common theme between all of my clients is 95% of them have some form of digestive issue. If that's constipation, diarrhea, bloating, ibs, sibo, food sensitivities, there's a big broad spectrum and everyone's different. But if there was one common thing that links the majority of my clients, there's a digestive component. This can spread to a lot of different things. I have major, many clients with Ms. And with good reason. Ms. Can be an autoimmune condition that can be triggered by the leaky gut phenomenon, can be caused by toxins. You know, there's a very strong link. I wouldn't I'd be surprised if, if your listeners weren't aware of the link between things like mercury toxicity and amalgams and Ms. Very, very strong link there. And the common theme between all of these things is your gut is the primary site of detoxification for these compounds. These are all fat soluble compounds that leave through the bile, which leaves through the digestive system. So if you have a compromised digestive system, you have a compromised detoxification system and you're going to bioaccumulate toxicity and mercury specifically has a very high affinity for myelin. Everybody, I'm sure that listening is aware of what myelin is and how it plays a role in an Ms. Kind of progression.
- [05:52]
A
So many layers to this too and. Right. There's so much they still don't know about the brain and about Ms. And everything like that. So, so it's, it's, it's so interesting. The more research they do and they find out more things they unpack like the layers of an onion, the more things.
- [06:08]
B
The one thing that I've learned probably more than anything as I have learned more in my own healing journey and that of working with my clients, is that I don't really know anything. I hardly know anything at all. And it's kind of embarrassing to say that being a practitioner, you know, you're, you're working with people and like they're kind of betting their health on their work with you. And for you to come out with saying something like, I don't really know all that much. But honestly, the deeper you go, the more you realize we, we hardly know anything about the human body, about healing, about the microbiome, about these kinds of health problems and disorders. We are scratching the tip of the iceberg. We hardly know anything.
- [06:50]
A
So I, I hinted at the beginning episode a little bit about disordered eating. There's now, there's one title that I had never heard of until I started working with you and you talked about in a lot of your videos about this, this idea of arfid. Would you explain what ARFID is? And maybe if I'm pronouncing it correct.
- [07:07]
B
No, that's perfect. You've got it exactly right. So ARFID is an acronym that's short for avoidant Restrictive food intake Disorder. So this is actually a new classification of eating disorder. This is an officially recognized eating disorder. Now it got added to the DSM 5, which is like the mental health categorization. So like the old types of eating disorder, like anorexia, bulimia, these are Kind of more classic eating disorders. They were already in there. This is a new edition, a new update, like in the latest edition, the DSM, I believe it's called the DSM 5. But the definition that they have in that is a little bit different from the way that I look at this. So the kind of, the more classic definition of ARFID is that there is an avoidance or a fear of consumption of certain foods, mostly due to the fear of the negative consequences of consuming the foods. So very commonly you'll see this, as you mentioned earlier before we started the interview, this kind of textural aversion, this is quite common. So this often happens when somebody has an acute traumatic experience with a certain texture of food. For example, they eat something that's very chewy or very sticky and they end up choking on it when they try to eat it. This creates a lot of fear, a lot of fear associated with the food. And it's not that the individual is afraid of the food. It's this subconscious association that's developed between this acute traumatic experience and that texture of food. And then there is this aversion that is subconsciously developed and therefore an avoidance. So this is the more classic definition where you're looking at this more sort of like acute experience. However, there is a more nuanced layer to this that I've explored myself in my. My own work and I've experienced personally. I would. I would say, although this. I've never had a formal diagnosis of this, I would say this is exactly what I have, which is more of a somatic expression of arfid, which is where this fear, this aversion actually manifests as symptomology inside of the body. So you've probably heard of this kind of term, psychosomatic. So this is the idea that the. A psychological component can manifest as a physiological sensation inside of the body. For example, the common example everybody uses is somebody that experiences PTSD from war, like a war veteran or something. They go to war, they come back from war, they're not in danger anymore, but they have unprocessed trauma. They have these unprocessed emotional experiences. And. And it expresses as a physiologically felt sensation of pain in the body. As in they rely on a cane and they limp, or they have chronic pain in some point in their body. And there's actually no medical or physiological cause of this. It's actually psychologically rooted. But its manifestation is physiological, like their pain is real. You can do a brain scan on them. They are experiencing pain. It's not that pretending the pain is there, but the cause of the pain is not physiological. So apply this to this sort of template, to a context where someone has developed a negative association around a food. In my experience, where this is most common is when someone has an actual genuine trigger to a food, like a real physiological reaction. So this could be an anaphylaxis episode. This could be the inability to digest a certain food that they're consuming, like gluten or dairy. Or what's very common in my circle is things like histamine sensitivity, oxalate sensitivity, salicylate sensitivity. So the body actually triggers a genuine, real physiological reaction to this food. But what can happen is we work, and this is a lot of what I do in my work is trying to figure out these underlying biochemical metabolic pathways as to how do the, does the body break these food compounds down and how can we address any deficiency or dysfunction in these pathways? And we correct it. And what you can see happen is the body actually becomes able to process these compounds. So the body is now able to break down histamine or break down salicylates or break down gluten or dairy. It actually physiologically is capable of processing these things. But due to this individual's experience of not being able to, to digest them previously, even though the body has moved on and the body is now able to assimilate these things, there is a negative association that's often subconscious with said food. And the person then consumes this food and has a physiological reaction again. This is a real reaction. It's not that they are pretending, it's not imaginary, it is a real reaction. Just as someone that has PTSD is experiencing real physiological pain inside of their body. But the root of it is no longer based in a physiological dysfunction. It's based in an essence, a maladaptive cognitive process where the body is perceiving danger, the mind is perceiving danger, and it's triggering a response that actually ends up being very similar to the initial response that was actually caused the actual genuine intolerance to that food.
- [12:27]
A
It's very interesting and I think a lot of people, when we've, we've heard of psychosomatic and PTSD with the war, I think most of us have heard of, of that, of it. And just drawing from my own experience living with Ms. For over 15 years now, I've gone through all of the, quote, you know, Ms. Diets out there.
- [12:48]
B
Sure.
- [12:48]
A
And there's, and there's a lot of, I want to say, fear mongering in Them and a lot of the beliefs like if you do this wrong, you're going to make your Ms. Worse. Things are, things are going to worsen for you and because some so and so is doing better on this diet than you're not on the right diet. Like there's, there's so much fear based around food. And I kept cutting things out to the point when I, when I started working with you, I was on a carnivore, I think it was for eight or nine months I was on because I was so afraid of food. And what you were talking about, you know, about the, a trauma happening and then it manifesting. I remember you eating like a big meal and then I couldn't even get it from the table or I couldn't walk. And it became for myself, I hated food. I would literally try to walk after and I'd almost start crying because my body was responding so negatively to it. And so I hated food and I was terrified of what food would do to me. So I was happier just fasting because my body wouldn't do anything. But obviously I have to eat. So it wasn't.
- [13:56]
B
This is a very common theme that I, that I see there's some sort of initial negative association with a food experience. And one of the things that's, that I find very challenging or very frustrating is especially when you have like I would, I would consider Ms. To be a. It's a big diagnosis. You know, it's one of those, it's one of the big ones. And unfortunately, when you get a big diagnosis like this, any symptom that you might be experiencing is almost just thrown on board as oh yeah, it's probably the Ms. Oh, it's the Ms. It must be the Ms. And there's no investigation that's done into any other potential angles of dysfunction. Like in context, very often people are reacting to foods because they can't digest them. And sure, Ms. Affects your nerves, it can affect your enteric nervous system and your nerves abilities to function in the gut. But there are a lot of other things that cause an impaired digestive function. Aging can do it. Microbiome damage. So if you have any courses of antibiotics or any types of medications that have an antimicrobial effect, if you take things like PPIs or if you're any. On any type of more advanced medication, these can create nutritional deficiencies which inhibit these physiological functions. And then the digestive system for some reason struggles to digest a meal. And then we've, we've initiated this, this association, this negative association and it creates a split. And that split will only grow as you go more and more restricted. Very often what happens is you create more dysfunctions because you're more nutritionally deficient. Or like eating a carnival diet. You know how restrictive that is? You can't go any out with your friends, you're isolated, you can't do anything. And I know when I was on my diet of five foods, I didn't have any friends, I never went out to eat. It was, it was impossible. Just I can remember going out sometimes with my family in some situations where I kind of feel like I was being dragged along and I had to kind of attend and I'd sit there and drink a glass of water and everyone around me is eating pasta and pizza and all these nice foods. And I can actually even remember, remember one specific time I was drinking sparkling water and I even had a reaction to that. And at that point I was like, this is ridiculous.
- [15:59]
A
What about someone that, you know, they have these psychosomatic things, they have this reaction based on a trigger. But what if, what if they do don't tolerate foam ups? Like how do you decide when it actually is a physical problem versus a triggering psychological thing that becomes physical?
- [16:20]
B
This is a really good question and I would say this is, in a way, this is the art of being a good practitioner because I have to read an individual and I'm constantly trying to assess when I'm sitting across from somebody how much of this is physiological, how much of this is psychological. And I think that there's like a huge like taboo, almost like a huge shame attached to there being a psychological component versus a physiological component. Almost like it's in my head, it's in my mind, therefore it's self inflicted. And it's almost like there's more of something wrong with you than if you had a physical health problem. And I think it's really important to just call that stigma out and just get rid of it because it's not helpful. Life is complex and I am a very solutions orientated person. If I can find any angle to improve your quality of life, to improve the function of your body, of your mind, I want to bring it to your awareness so we can tackle it. I had a huge resistance, even the word now psychosomatic. I find this very triggering because it's almost like it's in your head, it's in your mind, you're imagining this problem. There's a huge, for me, there's a huge trauma there because it was so invalidating when I had all of these actual physical problems, these physiological dysfunctions. And I would go to all of these various health practitioners, these professionals, GI doctors, functional doctors, all these people, and they'd say, it's in your head, it's psychological. When at that stage, sure, there was, but there was also a big physiological thing that was not being addressed. And it was so invalid, so invalidating, so gaslighting. So before I will even suggest that there is a psychosomatic component, you have to do a thorough investigation. And I would always assume that it is physiological first, because there is, I would say it's roughly a 50, 50 mix where about 50% of people, if you work on addressing these physiological dysfunctions. So the way that I look at this primarily is I have a framework of digestive functions. Maybe you remember this, maybe you'd be familiar with this, which is that the gut has five primary functions. Stomach acid, digestive enzymes, bile, motility, mucosa. If you define the functions of the digestive system as succinctly as possible, you'll come to this conclusion that you is these five functions, if any one of these single functions is ineffective, is not functioning at its appropriate rate. You will have food sensitivities, you'll have reflux, you'll be constipated, you'll have diarrhea, you'll have a whole bunch of different problems. So our first angle is, okay, let's try and address some physiological dysfunctions. And almost always, even if there is a psychosomatic component, even if there is trauma, even if there's an emotional component, it's very rare that you've got that going on and not some physiological issue as well. So this, usually you'll find a big improvement. And what I find really helpful is if I can get someone to win, if I can help them improve their symptoms by finding an avenue of approach that improves their quality of life, they trust me because I've helped them more than all of the other doctors that they've talked to, all of the other practitioners. They've not been really very helpful. As soon as somebody actually helps, you're like, he knows what he's talking about. He understands this. He can actually help me. This, this guy knows what he's talking about. And it is really helpful that I've lived through it, because there are certain things you can't. You can't learn studying. You have to go through them. And I know that you know what I'm talking about. These are things that you'd learn through experience. So at that point, once I've already got someone to win and I've already helped them get some results. They're much more open to me suggesting maybe there's some trauma here, maybe there's an emotional component. And again, there's no shame, there's no taboo in it. I'm just trying to find the solution. I'm just trying to get you to the point where you're as symptom free and you're as functional as you possibly can be. And one of my deepest regrets is that I didn't work on this emotional side of the healing process right from the start. I delayed two or three years because of the shame, because of the stigma. And the person it really hurt the most is me. Because it cost me two or three extra years on my healing journey. I could have made so much more progress. But hindsight is 20 20. You know, you look back and you can see all your mistakes and you think, oh, maybe I could have done that better. But honestly, it is what it is. I think I've done a pretty good job. I'm very happy and very proud of, of my journey. So I'd always consider addressing physiological fast. And then if you're working with somebody that is skilled and someone that's skilled in these things and knows to look for these things, they will start to bring them to your awareness. And people are at different stages in their healing journey. Sometimes I'll test the waters and I'll suggest this and they'll just shut it down. They'll just say, I'm not interested, I don't want to look at that. And if that's where that person's at, then me pushing them into that isn't helpful. That's again, the skill of a good practitioner is meeting somebody where they're at. So I want to try and help them as much as I can with whatever they're open to and we'll work there.
- [21:09]
A
Now, what would you say to someone perhaps like a new client and you're listening to, to them talk and maybe even your experiences with me as well, like hearing some stuff, knowing that there's some physiological stuff with digestive stuff, but hearing some of the words like food, like bad, like adding people that add like a moral component to food. How do you unpack that? Is it, is it kind of the same process whether someone's actually willing to see the, the emotional tie to the food, calling it moral, good and bad and things like that?
- [21:47]
B
That is such a good question. And I think the best way I can sort of confirm this is something I Experience is a lot of times, especially in my initial consultation, I'll ask people to send me a food diary so I can get an idea of what they're eating. Again, not. Not because I'm trying to judge them or trying to guilt them, but very often they will submit something and then when we're talking about it in the session, they will be like. Or been eating kind of bad, or they, like, they feel guilty or there's shame associated to how they're eating. And it's. It's so funny. Some of the things that I. I say with my clients, the things I never would imagine, like, for one of my clients, the homework task was to have some wine, have a bottle of wine. You know, you'd never think that a health practitioner would be telling you to go and enjoy some alcohol, but that's what was healing for her at that time. I think, if I recall correctly, correct me if I'm wrong, I think one of your tasks was to go and enjoy a pizza.
- [22:36]
A
Yep, that's exactly.
- [22:37]
B
Yeah. Yeah. So I never thought I would say these things, but there is. Healing is what it is. Like, I didn't invent it, I just discovered it. And in some context, it's, you need to go and have a blast. You need to go and enjoy yourself. You need to eat a food that is you're going to enjoy. And there is healing in that. Healing can be found there. And again, don't, don't hate the messenger if you don't like what I'm saying. I didn't make this up, I just discovered it and I'm just trying to share it with you. This is what it is. I wanted to be the restricted guy. I wanted to learn about science, I wanted the studies, and that didn't give me healing. I found healing by embracing and exploring this other side of things. So if someone is bringing these things up to me, what I find can be helpful is instead of challenging it directly, try to change the point of focus. So when they're talking about food being good or bad, usually these are like cognitive processes. So, for example, dairy is a bad food because it's inflammatory and it has this A1 beta casein, which is inflammatory, and if you can't digest it, it produces casomorphines, which are heroin like substances, and they're very addictive and it's a bad food, as opposed to, say, what's the health food everyone talks about? So spirulina or kale or something, you know, these are foods that are high in nutrients. They're low in inflammatory molecules, that they're. They have antioxidants. This shows like a narrow lens of thinking because you're only measuring whether a food is good or bad based through one. One metric. And what you're looking at here is the context of toxicity, like what potential harm it could do to your body versus nourishment, what potential benefit it could provide to your body. And usually when people are stuck in the good food, bad food paradigm, you're measuring these two things up. Inflammatory potential toxicity, nourishment, potential nutritive components. And this is good and this is bad. However, there is so much context to this. One of the ways I find it really practically helpful is to ask somebody to go into eating some different foods without such a heavy judgment in their mind and see how it makes them feel. How does their body feel? Because I still get stuck on this sometimes. Like, I personally feel amazing eating gluten. I can eat. I can eat pizza bases. I can eat dairy. I can have baguettes. I can have all these different things that for a lot of people are not good. And these are my optimal foods. I feel the absolute best if I've got some gluten and some dairy in my diet. It sounds insane, but it's true. I don't. I didn't want it to be this way, but it is this way. So this has been my experience and learning how to trust what my body is telling me over what some random guy told me on the Internet that I don't know, or even some scientists or some PhD researcher. My body is what does all of the healing. Not the PhD research, not the person out there. It's my body. So if I can reconnect to my body and listen to what my body is saying, it's going to lead me towards healing. It's going to show me what healing is. And there are foods right now. So I'll give you a personal example. And I think this is really important to do because as a practitioner, there's a very heavy weight of being perfect. Like you have to be fully healed. I. I don't like that. I think it's a very bad paradigm because it puts me on a pedestal. And it's not. I'm just a real person. So for me personally, my two biggest food triggers right now are onions and garlic. These are my two foods that give me the most problems. Objectively healthy foods. They used to have good fodmaps. These are good fibers. These are antimicrobial. They are sulfur donors. They're to some people, very healthy. And arguably for your microbiome, very good foods. For me, I eat these foods. I feel bad. I don't. I don't feel very good. So what my body's telling me is that is not a good food for you right now. And I could look at all of the scientifically referenced articles, or I could hire somebody to tell me, you need to eat these fodmaps because they're good for your gut. But I don't feel good when I eat them. And that's all I need to know. That is all I need to know. That the tricky part there is, is it a physiological aversion or is it psychological aversion? And now we're kind of coming full circle because for me, in my mind, I'm saying, I'm not saying these are bad foods. I'm saying these are not optimally healthy foods for me at this stage in my journey. And you always have to be, especially if you have a history of disordered eating, as I do, and as most people do, whether they're aware of it or not, it's better if you're aware of it. You can be more mindful of it. I am always open to inquiry. Is, is it a physiological reaction? Is it psychological reaction? And you constantly have to be playing devil's advocate. What if it is just psychological? What psychological aspect am I not addressing? And this happens to me all the time. If I'm having a digestive issue, the first thing I want to do is identify the trigger, remove it from my diet and get control again. That's what I want. I want to lock down. And very often it's. I'm having an argument with my wife and I'm stressed with work, and then I start to have a stomachache and it's an emotional thing. And now I'm react. I think I'm reacting to things. I want to cut the things out and I have to stop and pause. Okay, what's going on? What's going on in my life? And now I've reached a point where I can really, literally, I know this might sound like a bit magical, but I can sit with myself. I can feel into my stomach and I can say, okay, what's going on? What, what are we feeling? What's happening here? And it's like, you got rejected. You tried to connect and you got rejected there. You're not meeting your needs. Like, you didn't, you didn't shower today and you needed to shower. You're abusing it. You're. You're neglecting yourself, you've taken on too much work, you're stressed out. And my body will tell me this. And I'm like, okay, this is where I need to exert my control. This is where I need to use this control energy, not restricting my diet because it's not the food that's the problem. And it's, it's so flexible because like I'm saying right now, my two biggest food triggers, onions and garlic right now. And maybe you can't hear it, but I'm actually a little bit sick. I've got a cold flu kind of thing. And this makes my digestive system struggle a little bit. And I'm a bit more sensitive to foods. If we go back two weeks, I was eating chicken biryani, which is like a, an Indian dish that's full of onions, full of garlic, herbs and spices and all these things. I had a whole bunch of different foods that had onions and garlic. I had no problems at all. And there's variability and there's this fluctuation and this is what a mind that is stuck in fear cannot tolerate. It needs black and white. It needs safety, unsafety. It cannot handle that fluctuation of variability. So there's a skill that you need to develop in that and it's a skill that you develop with time and practice. I'm sure you could probably personally relate to this.
- [29:27]
A
You know what, it just the hearing some of the words you say, like the degree of self awareness that you have and not making things all or nothing and black and white. Like it's, it's so much I know for myself and I know for many others in the Ms. Community in these, in these restrictive diets. It's, it's very much like, oh, I had that reaction, therefore that food is bad. So we just accept list and it's, it's, it's what you were saying. There's so many other things going on and we do want to put it into category. This is strictly physical. I reacted to this food, not all these other stressors going on. Maybe I had an infection going up, maybe all these other things. And yeah, it's, it's a, it's a degree of self awareness and also learning to be flexible because it's true. We do want, we want yes or no. We want straight answers with no, no gray.
- [30:19]
B
Yeah.
- [30:20]
A
And, and then, and then that's how we get so restricted because we just put a big X through something and then an X through something and an X through something instead of investigating what's actually going on.
- [30:33]
B
So what can be really tricky is if you are not investigating any of these psychological or emotional aspects, you're going to keep getting X's because you're not actually addressing where the actual problem is. And if you're not open to it, you never see it. So you're just going to keep getting the same evidence over and over again. But personally, and I've got no shame in saying, I've done probably about 400 hours of somatic therapy, 200 hours of different types of more cognitive or talk style therapies, things like family constellations and that sort of thing. I've spent 10000 hours in meditation. I've done a lot of this work. And that's why I've got to the point where I have this level of ability to living. You said live in the gray and that's originally how I used to phrase it. And now I actually see it as live in the color, the color in between. Because between black and white it could be gray, but it could also be color spectrum. It makes a lot of sense if you think about emotions the way I see emotions. They're all colors. They're all different colors. And the reason for this is for a long time I experienced a lot of depersonalization which is almost like this feeling of abstractness from reality. Like you're not really yourself. It's almost like you're watching your life happen on tv. And one of the things I distinctly remember was how gray everything felt. And as I've done all these different therapies and modalities and I've come back to myself and my feelings and my emotions, the world has color again. I can feel the, the textures and the vibrancy of the world around me again. And that's part of becoming more authentic and closer to self actualization. Coming closer to your actual, true, authentic expression of yourself and feeling safe in your physical body, in physical reality.
- [32:17]
A
Obviously the way you described it, it's, it's been a process for you. It wasn't just a snap of your fingers, but obviously, you know, it's it. This is your life and you want to live the best life you can. So you know you're worth the investment. It's funny when you talk about restriction, I think at one point when I was so restrictive I almost wore that as a badge. Like, I don't eat.
- [32:38]
B
Me too.
- [32:39]
A
I don't need this, I don't need that. Like it was almost like, yeah, I, I have these medical stuff, but look, look at all the things that I'm saying no to denying myself, to, like, be proud of me, like be impressed.
- [32:51]
B
Yeah, I was exactly the same. And I would, I would use this as a tool to judge other people, to make myself, in my opinion, better than them. So I'd, I'd drive past McDonald's and I'd look at all of those dirty, disgusting people in their feasting on this toxic food. And I judged them so heavily. And one of my big breakthrough moments was when I went into McDonald's and I had a meal and it was delicious and I loved it. And I donated to the Ronald McDonald charity. It was only like a Euro something, nothing huge, but it was like, I accept this, I am okay with this. I can be in peace with this. And to be a health practitioner that is focused on reducing disease and helping people live their best lives and detox and gut health and all these things, how can I also be a person that loves the McDonald's breakfast menu? Like, I'll take a McMuffin any day of the week. I love it. It's one of my favorite things. And to be able to hold both of those things as an identity, somebody that's so a health advocate, focuses on health. And it's literally like my full time job. It's my career. It has been for the last five years. And to also be somebody that can have some vegetable oils and some, let's say, like nutritionally suboptimal food with food additives, MSG and all these things, and to be able to be both of those people at the same time, that is the art of healing.
- [34:19]
A
Yeah. It's incredible. Now what, what do you think if The William from 10 years ago could see the William of today, do you think he would have been in disbelief or he would have been like, you're nuts. Like, there's no way we're just gonna get worse.
- [34:31]
B
He simply could not have understood. And I see this because one part of having been through this is I meet people that are at different stages through their healing journey. And I meet people that are where I was 10 years ago all of the time. And what's really challenging is I can't just tell them the truth of what I've experienced healing to be in raw and filtered form, because they just think I'm nuts. They don't get it at all and it doesn't help. So again, this is part of the skill of being a good practitioner is figuring out where they're at in the journey and helping them go from step one to step Two. And then step two to step three. And let's say I'm on step. I don't want to be arrogant. Let's say I'm on step six out of 20 steps. Because I'm sure there's. I'm sure I'm not even halfway yet. There's. I'm learning. There's so much more to this than I could have ever imagined. Same on step six. I can still help everyone that's at step one, two, three, four, and five. And if I can figure out which step they're on, I can personalize, I can attune to where they're at and give them what helped me get to from one stage to the next when I was at that stage of my journey myself.
- [35:38]
A
So, William, when I worked with you, we worked on a lot of the five pillars, and I embraced a lot of the different supplements and stuff, like digestive enzymes and bioass, like different, different things that we work through and really good probiotic and. And those things that, sure, I kept up. Now I will say, I. I will say over the years though, when, when I look back on the time that I did work with you, often I'm like, man, I wish I could like, tap into William's brain again. But I. I look back on that time and I think of like, different points that I've invested in different practitioners and things. And when my husband Phil and I talk about it, we always say the time that I had with you was worth more than the investment because for myself, it. There was so much emotional healing and, and some of that, that moral and food and just the fear of food and. And I've grown so much. I still do have some things that I limit in. In North America, gluten and dairy may be a little bit different than, Than in the.
- [36:41]
B
You are 100. Correct.
- [36:43]
A
So. So those things I. I am cautious about. But I will let myself go and enjoy food and feel freedom in it. Because as much as I like loved the idea, oh, I'm restricted from this and I'm restricted for that. Like, look at me, look how hard I'm trying. I was in a prison and I was so afraid of food and I wouldn't enjoy myself. And now, you know, having. Having some chocolate or having, you know, my very pizza or whatever, like, I'm enjoying life so much more. And that's part of what healing is. Because we think that it's okay if I don't have this specific symptom. Then everything will be perfect. But meanwhile, you could not be in A good place from a mental standpoint and just living as a prisoner with food and not getting to go out, like you said, with friends or family and enjoy yourself. Like there's a, there's a huge freedom to being able to expand the things that you eat and, and allowing yourself to enjoy without that fear of, oh, crap, what, what have I done? What's going to come next?
- [37:51]
B
Yeah, I think there is not, there's not a single person that is listening or that's interested in, and health that would disagree with the thought that being in a perpetual state of fear is not conducive to healing. And if it's there, but you're in essence masking it or covering it or disguising it just by eating the, the perfect diet, which arguably does exist or arguably doesn't, maybe that's an exploration for another time. But the fear is there and it's in, it's, it's, it's, it's in the background, it's in the, it's in the trunk, it's hidden, but it's there. And so much of healing is working through fear and overcoming fear. Because we could, we could go a million different directions. We could go deep, we could go into the energetics. But I think we could all agree being in a state of chronic fear is not conducive to healing. I would say that these are, these are almost opposing energies. If there, if there were such a.
- [38:52]
A
Thing, what would you say to someone that's, you know, needs to work through some of these pillars that you talked about? The gut, they need physiological help as well as some emotional and different types of healing. Like, where would you tell people to start with?
- [39:07]
B
Good question. So if you have the resources and you're able to. Should book in a consultation with me. I like to offer a lower cost sort of discovery call, like an introductory call. I like to do this at a lower cost than my standard coaching sessions because I really want to be able to connect with as many people as possible. And I know that if I'd had access to that myself when I was really struggling, I could have shaved two or three years of my healing journey just by getting more clear on what's the actual problem, what is the most optimal way to tackle it and just bringing more, more things into my awareness. Like, I didn't know about trauma, I didn't know about the digestive functions. I didn't know any of these things. And I could have the opportunity to talk with you. I can personalize the information that I give you which is going to be really, really helpful. That's really where a lot of the value in one on one coaching comes from. Is that personalized touch. If you're not able to do that or if you're like not sure if you want to do that. And you're looking more at the physiological side of things. So like, let's say specifically like if you maybe you're dealing with ms, but you've also got like a bunch of different gut problems and no one's really done any investigation into it because, because you have Ms. So it's probably just because of that. Well, I would beg to differ. I actually created a quiz that's completely free. You can fill it out just by answering 90 yes or no questions. So it's literally like do you experience constipation? Do you experience bloating? Do you have reactions after eating certain foods? It's like super easy questions. You just answer yes or no and it tallies the answer to all of your questions up and scores you over these five pillars. So it's going to help you see where are you specifically having a dysfunction in your body based on your symptomology. It then generates a completely personalized report. It's personalized to you with supplemental recommendations, different types of diets or ways of modifying your diet, things that you could try and I've done this to try to make it really accessible and condense my knowledge into a platform that you can literally just access at absolutely no cost whatsoever. So you could fill that out. I can provide majority with a link and you'll find that probably somewhere in the show notes. Or you can go on my website and just search my name, William Dickinson. And then in the top bar there's a place where you can access the quiz. So that's totally free. The PDF report that you get is also totally free and it gives you some personalized suggestions based on your symptomology. Because personally I believe that symptoms are your body communicating with you. And if you can understand what your body's trying to communicate, then you can personalize your support based on what your body's asking for. And that's basically exactly how the quiz works. So it would give you some personalized suggestions that you can then experiment with and see if they make you feel better. That would be a generally good way of measuring. If they're good for you, they should make you feel better. That's the key.
- [42:00]
A
And we definitely will put some of the links to your website and enter the quiz in the show notes and things like that one, one of the other things doing coaching with you is, I know for myself at so many others, like so many of us have invested in different kinds of blood work and different kind of testing and all that and we have like this mass amount of information and we don't know actually what it means at all. And that was probably, is a detriment to you. But man, when I signed up with the coaching with you, I think I sent you blood work for the last like four years and my gi gi map and my oats test, like all these things and like no one, I didn't know what any of it meant. And then you spent some time looking over and you're like, oh, well, this points to this and this points to this. So we need to focus on that. Like there's, there's something about having that one on one coaching, like someone who actually knows their crap. And I remember thinking, because you are, you are fairly young, but the amount of knowledge you have far surpasses someone twice your age in.
- [43:02]
B
Thank you.
- [43:02]
A
In the medical field, like just from your own experience and your own research, like, you know, you know your stuff. Thank you. And there's something about having confidence in someone who knows it because the things that you say, you're not just spouting it off just to get it. Like you actually have lived through the experience and you have had enough clients of your own to see what steps are best for each person.
- [43:26]
B
Yeah. So I really think that empowerment, empowerment of the, the client, the individual, is the key to healing because you're the only one that's going to heal yourself. I've, I've only ever healed one person in the whole world and that was me. All of my other clients, they've healed themselves. Joe, working with Jodie, she healed herself. It's, it's about empowering the individual. And a lot of people have spent thousands, tens of thousands on different labs and they don't know what they mean. And what is the point in that? Because you don't, you're not getting any value out of it. So this is again why I like to offer that initial consultation at a lower price so I can go through some of your labs with you and help you understand what they actually mean, because they're not doing you any good. If you've got one practitioner from five years ago that did the test, took a brief look at it, didn't tell you what it meant, and gave you one supplement for it, that's not helping you. If I can help you understand what the Labs actually mean there's so much value in that and it's empowering because you're the only one that's going to really, truly figure this out. I can help. I'd love to help, but you're the only one that's going to do it because you're the only person that can heal yourself.
- [44:31]
A
So much great wisdom. Thank you again, William, for meeting with me today. I know that there will be varied listeners from all sorts of communities of different chronic illness, not just ms, but so much relatable content in this, this idea of food and fear and disordered eating. I think even for we'll say, quote, unquote, the healthy population, I think we've all got some, some issues to work through in this. So I hope that people really will take take a look at some of your free resources and do the quiz. And I know you have a ton of information on YouTube as well.
- [45:07]
B
And yeah, YouTube channel is the best place to go. We do a new video every single week. We cover loads of different topics. We upgraded our production quality and our production value. We've reached the point where we got 5,000 subscribers, which is amazing. Huge celebration. And we're starting to get 10, 11, 12,000 views on a video now if we, if we dial it in right. So we're really starting to get some traction with the algorithm. And it tells me people really want to know this information. They really want it broken down in a really simple way. So you're always welcome to go check out the YouTube channel, especially if you've got some gut health stuff going on. You'll just dive straight into that. You'll love it.
- [45:44]
A
Awesome. All right, well, thank you again, William, so much for meeting with me today.
- [45:48]
B
Thank you, Jody. It was really, really nice to have the opportunity to talk about these things because it's no good having all this information in my head if nobody knows about it. I've gained it so that I can share it. So having an opportunity to share with people is really helpful and I appreciate it. Thank you.
- [46:04]
A
Thanks for tuning in to the latest episode of the MSGYM podcast. Check out today's show Notes to learn more about our guest, William Dickinson and how you can connect with him.