Understanding Food and Functional Medicine with Dana Monsees #superentrepreneurs #shahiddurrani

[Music] welcome to super entrepreneurs podcast today we have with us dana monsis how are you dana i'm doing well thanks so much for having me on i'm excited to be here oh no problem at all i'm so happy that you took the time to come on the show we always like to kind of allow our guests to introduce themselves and all the great things that you're involved with oh thank you so my name is dana monsis i'm a dietitian nutritionist and body image coach and i specialize in with my clients a kind of blend of functional medicine integrative health and non-diet nutrition so most of the people that i work with have a history of disordered eating or kind of this on and off the wagon dieting cycle that they're just so sick of but at the same time they usually have these clinical symptoms that they're coming to me for and they don't know what to do so they're kind of caught between a rock and a hard place of you know i've got bloating or i've got gut issues or i've got thyroid issues but i really don't want to be doing these elimination diets anymore so they're caught and then they come to me and we find their way out so how can you explain that find the their way out like how do you do that exactly yeah so the interesting thing about um when people come to me is they're like okay you're a dietitian you're just going to give me a list of foods to eat and not eat which is exactly the opposite of it's just it's a perception right yes yes exactly um and it's funny also because you know it kind of comes with the territory of people here oh you're a dietitian you don't just like out in the world and friends and stuff oh so do you eat super healthy like are you on diets all the time like no quite the opposite actually um so the interesting thing about me is one of the first things that i always do when i work with people is i do an assessment of what is your relationship with food like what is your stress around food like what is your body image because in the clinical realm people talk all the time about how chronic stress is the one of the number one causes of disease processes and we know how chronic stress can really impact the thyroid and the adrenals your hormones and your gut symptoms too but the interesting thing is not enough people in my opinion are talking about well what about the impact of stress around food and the stress that many many people carry around every single day of i hate my body i'm dissatisfied with my body and everything like that and how that can actually translate to very real clinical symptoms so one of the first things that i'll do with people in addition to doing a symptom assessment seeing what vitamins medications they're on looking at their lab work stool testing if they have it is also talking to them about how everything you think you know about nutrition is really just weight control advice and we need to figure out of how can we use nutrition in a therapeutic way instead of focusing on oh you have this condition eliminate these foods it's gotten to the point in functional medicine where a lot of people are kind of using elimination diets like traditional doctors use medications so forever i try and provide an yeah right right and you you get put on you know an acid blocker or something which is really you're just supposed to be on for six weeks and then you're on it for 20 years and then people are wondering i don't know why i still have these health conditions and you know it's it's really not a fault of the doctors it's the way that our medical system is set up in the u.s at least um so i don't want to be you know throwing blues everywhere of course yeah but just you know providing an alternative way to think about things and one of the things that i love to do with people is a lot of re-education about nutrition how it can be very healing when you use it in an abundant and add in kind of way and also working on your relationship with food in your body image which can translate to real changes in your clinical symptoms so really it comes from the foundation of stress that even would cause these problems that they would need a dietitian so it kind of spans backwards to the stress if you look if you look back yeah definitely and you know it's the stress is a massive piece of it it's obviously not going to be the only thing right i'm not going to be out here saying oh you're you know the stress you have about food is causing your autoimmune disease and you know causing everything but it's a big piece of the puzzle that i find is very overlooked so this is like were you always in this is this your own business right so were you before this you were working somewhere or was it you always had a business um so long trajectory to get here i actually used to work in politics um i live in the dc area um and so i mean i guess this was six seven years ago at this point um and as soon as i graduated from college my whole life i thought i wanted to be a lawyer go to law school i grew up in the dc area too and so it seemed like a very natural trajectory um so after i graduated from college i worked on a campaign and then i worked in consulting for a while which was really sucking my soul um and then i started to have all of my own health problems which later i found out i got diagnosed with celiac disease and i had a bunch of other gut issues and thyroid issues and stuff so i started like a lot of people do you get a diagnosis or you have a lot of symptoms and no doctors can figure out what's you know quote wrong with you you kind of take it upon yourself and you start doing a lot of research so i found the whole you know food as medicine paradigm and i was like whoa i can heal myself with food so i got really interested in that um decided to go back to school while i was still working to get a health coaching degree and then i was like this is cool but not enough for me um and in maryland where i live you can't practice nutrition unless you're a licensed nutritionist or dietitian so if you're old that is the route i have to go um so i went back to grad school for that and started my own business and couple years later here we are so it's been two years since self-employed it has been um it'll be coming up on six years six years total okay that's great how's the journey been um it's definitely been um a journey you know as any time you have your own business there's a lot of figuring it out for yourself there's a lot of you know blood sweat and tears for lack of a better word um and there's also you know a lot of figuring out of i have to do the business side of things i have to be able to you know make a profit to support my life but at the same time you've got to be doing something that you enjoy at least in my opinion and that you are also feeling very fulfilled when you're doing it um and so in that light i've taken a lot of turns and changes of where my business kind of niche was so when i was first in school and first out of school i really was doing a lot of the oh you have this problem here's this elimination diet because that's what we're taught as dietitians and nutritionists um and then i realized one i was taking people through these programs and stuff and they still had so much stress around food and the whole you know like well what about my weight started to come up and all this body image stuff and i was like wait wait wait a minute like we're talking about stress all the time but not the stress that going on these protocols and cycling through these protocols is causing people and we're completely ignoring the fact that many people who come to a dietitian or nutritionist who primarily have gi problems and cholesterol problems and thyroid problems a lot of them have a history of disordered eating of going through all these different protocols and stuff and if you have somebody who has a history of disordered eating or really even just like an all or nothing mentality with food if you give them an elimination diet you're just contributing to the stress and then the stress disease process if it goes on for long enough so i kind of had this like business existential crisis of am i contributing to this problem and so then i completely shifted my philosophy to where i am now and it's it's taken a good like two years to really iron out what i how i wanted to change everything like that and what that would actually look like when i worked with clients a lot of like self-experimentation seeing what worked what people liked and what they didn't like and just you know always fine-tuning things and now here we are that's awesome that's great so i want to talk to you about the specifically the diet you know being in ketosis and intermittent fasting what are your views on those uh together i mean like as a combined not just ketosis but intermittent fasting with ketosis being in ketosis yeah yeah so okay so from a research perspective um ketosis and like the keto diet was really designed for kids that had epilepsy or other you know like mental health conditions because doctors found and researchers found that the brain's primary fuel is glucose carbohydrate sugar right so if you're able to switch that fuel source by primarily consuming fats moderate protein and low carbohydrate in the brain they say that um you know the fuel is a lot cleaner so kids were having fewer episodes you know fewer you know schizophrenic episodes and you know stuff like that which is really great you know for that population of people but anytime something like that is discovered you know the capitalistic marketing machine that is the country that we live in and the civilization we live in it's like ooh wait low carb we can turn this into a weight loss diet right and for some people it works really well for a lot of people especially the populations that i work with it for further just contributes to this now we have even more fears around food and we have even more you know rules and food shoulds and everything and then when they come to me some people are eating as little as like five foods because they've done you know um like paleo and they've done intermittent fasting and they've done keto and they've done all these things and so then they're like i have all these rules and i just don't know what to eat anymore now like i said before i do work with a specific niche of people right so that's not everybody um but generally what i find is that when people start to do keto and intermittent fasting it really depends on where their life stress levels are because fasting or not eating is another stress on the body right like whether or not you think that it's a stress it is a physical stress on the body because you're not giving the body what it wants food except during certain time windows right and carb restriction is also another stress on the body so if you're living a stress-free life and you know you're doing fine and everything it might be okay for you right to be clear i never recommend this for anybody that i ever work with but as a you know nutrition professional i feel like i should give my opinion right um that being said the interesting thing is when i've seen women do this in particular what happens when you're fasting and if you're low carbohydrate a cortisol response can happen in the body which cortisol is the hormone produced in response to stress what can happen there is then whenever cortisol is produced you're activating your fight-or-flight nervous system and then your blood sugar can increase your heart rate increases like all of these different physiological symptoms that happen if you're you know swerving away from a car in traffic or running away from a bear if we use a far back example if this continues to happen over time we're now stuck back in the stress disease process which is not a good thing so cancer and nutrition i always say is it depends um so i would say if that's something that you want to do i would definitely recommend working with somebody so that they can check on all of your you know genetic markers your blood markers and stuff because this protocol is there are some people for whom it's really not appropriate for them based on the way that their body metabolizes fats and stuff like that for example if you have a gallbladder you should not do keto because you don't have the raw materials to break down enough fats and you're just going to be having what i like to call disaster pants all the time oh boy yeah that was i didn't realize that one yeah it could happen right um so but you hear a lot of people being on intermittent fasting and keto they find that they they have so much more energy like for example like when i'm on it like i'm on it all the time but when i'm on it i'm i my energy level my my my happiness level because i do a lot of mindset training as well so it's hard to gauge if it's the food or that right but i know that i feel amazing when i'm on it like i feel incredible like unreal incredible and when i'm not on it if i break it for some reason before i used to do that a lot i used to be like seasonal uh but since you know for a long time now i've been quite determined um but when i change see that switch you know it would i would feel it i'll say oh my god i'm missing out on something you know so i i want that energy back i want that happiness i want those things back so i go back on it then again the beginning is hard the first two weeks you know the headaches and all that but after that it just you're i don't know how to explain it so and a lot of people talk about that feeling and that energy level so is it just based on the person because there's bad as as well right some people you know they don't respond that well to it right so is it just the dna of the person um it can partially be dna and genetics but it's also you know what's going on in your body so for example the gallbladder example do you have enough digestive enzymes to be able to break down that much fat do you have adequate stomach acid in order to break down those proteins because the other thing is if you let's say your stress bucket is completely full so you've been traveling all the time for work you know non-coveted but you know you're living in a global pandemic right it's coming like all this other stuff is happening and then you decide to try this new protocol right it might not work for you because again we've got the cortisol response the fasting response the keto response even just switching from you know being primarily a glucose burner to a uh you know a ketone burner is a physiological stress on the body so if your bucket is too full if you've also got the genetic piece if you've also got the enzymes piece the stomach acid piece recipe for disaster but not everybody has that right so some people like you will feel fantastic on keto and intermittent fasting i do find it works a lot better for men than it does for women at least in my anecdotal experience and some research as well well that's good that's good to know so if someone that's on this diet for example and you know over 40 plus age group um it's it's recommended to work with uh with a dietitian is like someone like you right like during the the whole phase and do you guys do actual testing as well to find out what the you know what's going on in the blood and everything as well yeah so specifically for keto now i don't specialize in doing you know keto nutrition or anything but i have friends who do and so they'll do you know the ketone testing sometimes they'll do at least in my state dietitians can't order blood testing so you would have to get that through your doctor um but doing blood testing is always really helpful and then stool testing is helpful as well to make sure you're actually digesting all of the fat that you're eating um so with you know not to talk about poop but when you're doing stool testing there are markers to see is there excess fat in the stool if that's the case then you probably need to if you don't want to switch um you probably need to supplement with some kind of digestive enzymes to make sure that you're actually absorbing all the nutrients that you're eating yeah but you know what the funny thing is i don't i don't think um i eat that much of a fat you know like i don't like my dinner is usually like you know the veggies the asparagus and stuff like that with some cheese and i'll have like you know a couple pieces of chicken sometimes sometimes lamb right so uh it's usually um it's not like like because of the intermittent fasting i'm not consuming that much fat so maybe that's why as well because keto you can come you can get to a certain level that you're eating a lot of fat right yeah yeah and i mean that's that's the kind of um and again i'm not in the keto world really but i do know that there's a lot of debate between like oh you know you can't even eat carrots if you're keto yeah or you know and and people will get fanatical yeah you know any of this kind of stuff so really it's and it sounds like you're doing what works best for you and that's always what i come back to right like if the way that you're eating feels good you're not having clinical symptoms you know you're sleeping well your energy is good your skin is clean your digestion is good sounds like what you're doing is working you know awesome if you're not able to check all of those boxes but you're still insistent on doing this protocol probably good to get you know a second set of eyes on what you're doing so just so people can check you know like of course are you taking the right supplements are you not taking any you know what about the balance of macronutrients that you have maybe you're just missing a certain nutrient in what you're eating so your niche that you work with you're mostly working with hospitals then no so i work in practice and i work with patients mostly one-on-one i also do online group coaching programs but right now i'm mostly focusing on one-on-one and i get um mostly i work off referrals um from people in my area so it'll be like i work with some personal trainers who send me referrals um you know physical therapists a lot of therapists in my area especially if i've got people who are dealing with you know depression anxiety eating disorders or disordered eating i'll get a lot of referrals from there too but i don't work in a hospital and i'm very grateful that i don't yeah i can imagine so this whole covet thing right did it did you branch off to the online world like i did and many other entrepreneurs did a shift i know you're saying that you get a lot of your patience locally through referrals but have you taken your business online so i had luckily always been online so i was always primarily online and then i would also see some patients in person um but it was probably like a 75 25 split in terms of online 75 and in person 25 um i've also worked as a swim coach for the past 12 years i want to say um and so some of my clients are also you know swimmers or families of swimmers so all that's going to be local as well but since covid everything has been 100 online but i do consider myself pretty lucky in that i already had an online platform where yeah like where i saw clients everything's privacy protected i had all the systems down perfect that could have been disaster yeah well for me we were all brick and mortar so it was a big big awakening call you know that uh if you're not online you know you're it's not going to be good for you so this was a really good wake-up call and there's a lot of business that were already in the in the online space like yourself but there's so many that that were not and but it actually pushed them to go online because really if you want to take your business next level you have to be online yeah definitely and you know it was funny um so speaking of like the physical therapy practice that i work with um they were obviously all in person and so the nice thing about having a referral network of practitioner friends in the area is you all help each other out you know so when kovid was first happening and all of the you know the gyms and the pers the personal trainers and physical therapists were like we don't know what to do i was like hey don't worry like i can help you a little bit i can't give you all of my time but i'm happy to help you you know set up like an online platform or how to do online courses or anything like that i mean it was really just survival mode for everybody and trying to help out who you could it's so true uh i had i owned a medical clinic as well a facility here in toronto canada and you know i work with physical therapists and chiropractors and massage therapists i know that realm but that's great is there i we always like to ask our guests like what is their superpower inner superpower that got them to this point in their life let's see um this is gonna sound so cheesy it's okay it's okay there's no right or wrong answer just really no i know um i mean i think the the thing that has helped me the most in business is i'm a very determined person but also i really care about people um and i think you you have to do that if you're in you know a service-based business is like i really care about my clients and their well-being and everything um and a big reason of why i got into nutrition in the first place is i never wanted anybody to have to go through the same mess in terms of illnesses and everything that i did when i was younger um and that's the whole one of the whole reasons that i got into nutrition in the first place of i want to teach people how to heal using you know non-traditional i guess medicine modalities because to be quite honest traditional medicine had failed me i'd been in and out of you know doctor's offices for years and nobody could figure out what was wrong with me when the only thing that was really wrong with me was i had celiac disease which means i was eating gluten and my body has an autoimmune reaction to gluten which means i can't eat it but nobody ever asked me what i was eating and it just it seems so simple at this point and kind of a given now because i think a lot more doctors do talk about food with their patients and stuff but to me at that time also being in my early 20s i was like this is a failure of traditional medicine and i want to you know find an alternative route and everything and obviously i you know have grown from that and traditional medicine is extremely important right for i mean we've seen over the past year for a lot of other reasons too right and so i think you know me always wanting to look out for my patients and make sure that they weren't trapped in the same cycle that i was in of just being you know bounced around from a bunch of different practitioners and not knowing what was wrong and having to figure out not everything but most things on my own and then it taking years of schooling to get there it was like okay well i now have all this knowledge and this practical experience and you know with patients and everything let's try and help people so that they don't have to go through that multiple year you know thousands of dollars journeys that i did that's great that's great thank you so much for that is there any kind of recommendation you want to share with anyone you know looking to get into this kind of business that you're in so i would say if you want to um get into nutrition um there's a couple different ways you can go so um funny anecdote a lot of people um get into nutrition because they're obsessed with food um right and it's like and they're just i'm really good at dieting and i want to like teach other people how to do diets yeah it really is um so i would say if you're interested in looking in the first thing that i would do would be to look up the laws in your state because nutrition is kind of tricky um if you go the registered dietitian route you can practice anywhere there are a lot of online nutrition programs that have a lot of great information in them but if you do those and you don't meet the laws of your state you can't legally practice there so that's the first thing that i would do and i'm pretty sure the website is um nutrition advocacy.org where you can look up your state and the laws of your state um it is a little bit different right now during covid for telehealth um but in general you do have to have a certain degree of licensure in order to practice in most states in the u.s so i would start there and then the two main routes that most people will go will either be a registered dietitian or a licensed nutritionist both of those i think as of next year maybe even this year require a master's degree so yeah so the dietitian route used to be an undergraduate degree and then you would do your clinical rounds have to get depending on the state about a thousand hours of clinical supervision and then take your board exam which at least in maryland is the same for a licensed nutritionist but it was a master's degree now both of them are master's degrees um so i would just do some research you know most of the dietetics programs are mostly based on the government's dietary guidelines it's very clinical in the sense of like here's the vitamins that you need and we're gonna you know not every dietitian is like that but that's mostly what the schooling is like the program that i did at maryland university of integrative health is more of a holistic approach um so we do like a lot of lab testing and we do whole body analysis as opposed to just here's the diet and here's what you should be eating um granted i didn't go through the dietetics program right so this is just what i've heard from other dietitian friends and everything but yeah i mean if you're interested i would first look up the laws of your state and then look into what kind of program you want to do because you'll be doing nutrition in both places um but i think there's a little bit of a different trajectory approach excellent excellent dana and you know that's a great suggestion you know always you obviously whenever you start anything you should be researching and and especially because it's a health related career you definitely want to do your research how about your business are you looking to take this somewhere like what are your desires like where do you want to take this this thing that you you have of your own right there's always passion with business so you think about things like where you want to take it yeah um i'm very much an ideas person is there's always 27 things that i want to be doing which i tend to take on too much sometimes um i think my number one will always be my clients and my patients and stuff because i really do love working with them but like i mentioned before i also have online courses i also do my own podcasts which i love interviewing other people it's just an excuse to talk to cool people about different conversations you know yeah so true um yeah and then i um i used to do more of this um but i'm i haven't been doing it as much looking to get back into it i also do um food photography and recipe development for brands which is like a natural extension of you know being a different horse which is definitely hits more of my creative side um which i grew up playing music and doing art and doing sports and stuff so i really kind of missed that and i got i don't want to say too clinical but the focus of my business definitely shift shifted to mostly the clinical side and i was kind of missing that creativity aspect um so i think finding a good balance that and then maybe one day i'll write a book you know who knows yeah that's awesome that's great you know we're as human beings we always need to grow right so i like to ask that question to see where your mindset is around especially people in business it's a huge component to what we do and it's always about serving when you serve you grow right so and your alignment is perfect so you know definitely wish you all the best with that and um and i want to thank you for coming on the show and for the audience you know if anyone wants to learn more you know dana is a very pleasing personality you can contact her she will help you answer any questions you have and you know let's get out of the nine to five and let's get into some business again thank you so much dana thank you for having me on [Music] super