Tell us about your specialty and clinical focus, and how you use nutrition to help?
While I currently see all nutrition clients, my passion lies in three main areas. The first is ADD/ADHD, Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and Sensory Processing Disorder. Closely related is AutoImmune issues, due to the correlation that has been seen with ASD. This shows up especially when I counsel the whole family unit. Lastly, I’m rather passionate about the nutritional links to neurological issues including, but not limited to, anxiety and depression. This blends well with the ASD families, who are under tremendous strain and these neurological issues often come along with all else.
How do you incorporate BioIndividual Nutrition into your practice?
BioIndividual Nutrition is what I do! I work with the foundations of a nutrient dense whole food diet, digestion, adrenals/blood sugar regulation, hydration, essential fatty acids and minerals. Bringing the client’s body into balance is different every time, even when there are common themes. My plans are individually tailored both to what the client’s body needs and to their ability and motivation to make the necessary changes.
Do you have a favorite diet you use in your practice, or a set of favorite diets when working with clients. Tell us how and when you use them.
Many clients are already gluten free when they come to see me, or have attempted it in the past. Through education, I motivate them as to how the GF/CF diet can often bring great gains in their health. It’s the specifics of each client that are fascinating, and each person needs a nutrient dense, whole food diet tailored to their needs.
I stress the Nourishing Hope food pyramid. The pyramid, with proper modifications as to the actual selection of foods within each category, provides the visual many clients need in order to understand what is meant by nutrient dense, whole food. The conversation this generates is always helpful.
My most magical results working with a specific diet come with those who start the low salicylate or low histamine diets. The results often are immediate and astounding!
Are there any nourishing foods you consider important for most people with this condition?
Many of the superfoods are off limits for those following the salicylate/amine diet. That includes bone broth and fermented foods. My approach is to determine what foods they generally enjoy, and focus on what foods they can have, as opposed to only concentrating on what they need to eliminate. This again is where the pyramid is helpful to think through what their shopping list will contain and how their dinner plate will look. I’m not past drawing proportions and suggestions on a paper plate with a sharpie and sending it home with them!
What other factors do you consider essential in supporting clients? Are there other supplement or lifestyle choices people should consider?
My paradigm for supplementation is two-fold. There are times when a client’s body is not able to complete a function, such as the person who has had their gall bladder removed, or someone whose detox processes are inefficient. While food helps, there are supplements that can provide the support in these areas, and such supplements may be used long term.
Alternatively, while learning again to feed the body, some supplements provide the client with a nutrient framework for the body to do its amazing healing work. Through dietary adjustments, most of these supplements are short term support to ease the client through those first rough weeks or months.
I always remember that the brain is part of the body, and that how we engage with ‘outside’ our body, starts ‘inside’ – and the only building blocks we have to maintain and repair all of our body are the ones we put in our mouth. Therefore, food and nutrition are an entry to additional conversations regarding sleep, movement and exercise, meditation, environment (including toxins and toxic relationships), and attention to daily and seasonal rhythms. Food is a metaphor f
or so many things and food affects all other aspects of our lives. Often, when food begins to be dialed in, these other areas begin to take their proper place in even the busiest of schedules.
Anything else you’d like to share with practitioners interested in this subject?
Study this Venn diagram. If your interest lies at the junction of all four circles, you’ll know you’re headed in the right direction. Never settle. Trust your gut!!
How has the BioIndividual Nutrition Institute training helped you?
If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. The more tools you have, and the more proficient you are using them, the easier and more professional the job.
The BioIndivdual Nutrition Institute training provides a plethora of tools to guide me in my work and proficiency came quickly due to the way the material is presented. I’m able to help not only the ASD families, but also my distressed clients who have never made the link between specific foods and environmental factors, and their dis-ease.
Since I now have a better understanding of how the body interfaces with its environment – internal and external – I can provide reason and meaning for all the necessary changes I recommend to my clients. This in turn motivates them to try. Then, they learn that it’s only hard until it becomes routine.
Check out Resolute Michael’s Profile in our Online Directory
BIO: Resolute came to nutrition later in life, after a 30 year career as a casualty claims adjuster. When reading medical histories, she took note of the progression of chronic disease and the doctors’ heroic efforts to bring it all under control, often without success. During this time, she started having chronic health issues. She researched nutrition solutions, becoming quite passionate about eating whole foods in their natural form, and understanding the sad state of our food chain today. She was delighted when a whole food, nutrient dense diet worked to resolve her metabolic syndrome, anxiety, sinus congestion and digestive issues. Now, as a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner and a Certified BioIndividual Nutrition Practitioner, she compassionately counsels families and individuals as they take their own journeys toward the best health they can achieve. Resolute is also a Group Leader for the BioIndividual Nutrition Institute’s NTA Study Group.
Website: www.PrimalPerspectives.com
