Green Tea Conversations
Nutrition for Health and Wellbeing with Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
May 8, 2022
Meet Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel, a holistic nutrition practitioner at MetroEast Natural Healing Center, in Oakdale. She introduces us to Nutrition Response Testing, a non-invasive system of analyzing the body to determine the underlying causes of ill or non-optimum health. Chelsea also shares her extensive knowledge of nutrition and how it impacts our bodies, the benefits of the ketogenic diet, breaking the addiction of sugar, and more! To learn more about MetroEast Natural Healing Center and to make an appointment, visit NutritionChiropractic.com or call 651-771-1703.
[00:00:20.390] - Candi Broeffle
Good morning and welcome to Green Tea Conversations, the radio show that delves into the pages of Natural Awakenings magazine to bring you the local experts who share their progressive ideas and the latest information and insights needed so you can lead your best life. I'm your host, Candi Broeffle, publisher the Twin Cities edition of Natural Awakenings magazine, and I am honored to bring these experts to you today on the show. We welcome Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel, a holistic practitioner at Metro East Natural Healing Center in Oakdale. Chelsea is an advanced clinically trained in nutrition response testing, holds a bachelor's degree in human physiology and a master of science in applied clinical nutrition. Welcome to the show, Chelsea.
 
[00:01:02.610] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
Hi, Candi. Thank you so much for having me here. I'm absolutely thrilled to be back talking with you.
 
[00:01:07.900] - Candi Broeffle
Well, it has been a while since you've been with us. It's been a few years, actually. And you have just been quite the prolific writer contributor to Natural Awakenings. I think you've had nearly ten articles that we've published in the last year.
 
[00:01:25.030] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
Yeah. I've had so much fun writing those articles. It's turned into a really, of course, fun to educate and be a part of what's being published, but a really kind of cathartic experience for me as a practitioner as well.
 
[00:01:37.760] - Candi Broeffle
Well. And you always provide such great information for our readers. So I'm really excited to have you on the show today. I do want to say you have quite the mouthful of education and experience to go through, so I want to learn more about that. Why don't you tell me a bit or tell us a bit about your experience, kind of what brought you to doing the work that you're doing today, just anything you want us to know about yourself before we get started?
 
[00:02:05.650] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
Yeah, absolutely. So I'm a holistic nutrition practitioner. I've been in active practice for just about five years. And I've worked at Metro East for six years, just over six years. So in the field professionally for quite some time. My kind of experience and exposure to natural health care goes back to my childhood with my mom. She was very holistic based. We went to the chiropractor, we took supplements. We talked about food and nutrition. So I grew up with that really kind of foundational, holistic wellness mindset. When I got into my teenage years, I deviated from that a little bit, as we do. And when I reflect back kind of on my personal health journey, I was a really healthy kid and I was a less healthy teenager. I dealt with acne. I had some hormonal irregularities, started to have some digestive issues, got into College and had headaches and didn't sleep. And I was tired and kind of Moody and thought maybe, am I dealing with anxiety, depression? A lot of the things that I had learned as a kid or I had really moved away from as a young adult, as we do right.
 
[00:03:09.030] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
It's all about the adventure of learning. I learned those lessons firsthand, for sure. After I graduated from College, I spent a few years working in group homes for adults with disabilities and kind of got to see firsthand what a really intensive medical intervention looked like. Right. A lot of, you know, drugs and kind of intensive interventions for behaviors and that kind of thing which sort of snapped me back into reality a little bit of there might be a different way to take care of ourselves, take care of our bodies. And I certainly wasn't taking care of my own health the way that I really needed to be at that time as well. I found the job at Metro East Natural Healing Center just through an indeed ad for an assistant, a practitioner assistant, or a patient advocate. And at the time, I actually was really not into the job that I was working. And I looked at it and I said, you know, something about this just feels right. I'm actually going to put my notice in at my existing jobs. I want to give them ample time. And I'm just going to plan that this is going to work out.
 
[00:04:18.010] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
Wow.
 
[00:04:18.800] - Candi Broeffle
You didn't have the job yet. You just decided to quit. It's going to happen.
 
[00:04:23.350] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
Exactly. I actually called my mom. She works in the personal development realm, so she's very kind of intuition and just very positive. And I called her and I told her and she was like, great, this will either be the exact next step that you take or you will find the right next step to take. So I met Doctor Furlong and Jackie for the first time when I went into interview, and it definitely was the right next step to take. And that really becoming a part of the team there is what allowed me to completely transform my own health in a way that I did not know as possible. The main modality that we practice at the clinic is nutrition response testing, like you mentioned. And I was not aware of that prior to working there. And so going through that process from a patient perspective was just absolutely life changing for me. That was in my mid twenty s. And the biggest thing that I worried about as a female was my skin, my acne. But what that meant from an outside perspective was that inside things really were kind of falling apart again. Digestive issues, sleep issues, fatigue, Moody, headaches, aches, pains, like things that a 24, 25 year old really shouldn't be dealing with, were very prominent in my life.
 
[00:05:38.920] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
And so I started that natural health improvement program and started to feel better, had better energy. I needed better energy because we work long days at the clinic. So that really was pretty important.
 
[00:05:51.730] - Candi Broeffle
We'll need to talk to Dr. Furlong about that.
 
[00:05:54.130] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
Exactly. These twelve hour days are something to train for, for sure. One of the biggest things that my now husband at the time, we were just dating something that I didn't even really realize that was a prominent issue. I had had strep pneumonia and pleurisy just after my freshman year of College. And lingering since then was this kind of low grade cough. It would happen when I lay down at night and kind of randomly throughout the day. And I was so used to it, I just didn't pay attention to it. And that was actually one of the first things as my health started to improve, that went away. And Mark, my spouse, he noticed it. I had no idea. And he was like, I don't know what you're doing at this new job or what's going on exactly. But keep doing it, because if you don't cough every night when we go to sleep, it's a much happier bedtime. So that was great. That was wonderful. And then just the winds just piled on from there. And really, I knew that something in health care was where I wanted to be. My original plan when I was in high school and in my undergrad was to go to medical school and pursue women's health care, women's medicine as a career.
 
[00:07:06.040] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
And there was a few kind of big roadblock moments on that journey where shadowing a gynecologist, where the answer to everything was birth control or hysterectomy just didn't feel right to me. Right. Driving to go take the MCAT, sitting in the parking lot having a panic attack, which I had never had, going, okay, well, that's clearly a sign, right. If my mother is talking anything that means something. And so I just really wasn't sure what my place was going to be in the realm of healthcare and getting into the clinic, having my own wins, witnessing so many patient wins that were truly life changing, that was kind of a light bulb moment for me that this is where I needed to be. So a little bit of a convoluted journey. Right. But the best ones usually are.
 
[00:07:55.330] - Candi Broeffle
But good for you that you were able to have that journey at such a young age, most of us wait decades before we take that journey. So Congratulations on that.
 
[00:08:06.260] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
Thank you. Thank you.
 
[00:08:07.040] - Candi Broeffle
And you are doing great work over there. I do want to remind our listeners that Dr. Furlong was on the show a couple of months ago now. So if it sounds a bit familiar, it will be. But you are going to be talking about all things nutrition. Now, we have a few minutes before we have to go into our break. So we're going to start by talking about what is nutrition response testing. Yes.
 
[00:08:33.910] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
Okay. Nutrition response testing. Again, the main modality we use at the clinic, the textbook description, is a noninvasive modality that allows a specially trained practitioner to analyze the body and figure out what is causing interference with the function of that body.
 
[00:08:50.960] - Candi Broeffle
Right.
 
[00:08:51.300] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
Whether it's a stressor like a toxic chemical, a heavy metal, a food sensitivity, an immune challenge, active scar tissue. We also assess for physical stress and emotional mental stress as well. Right. So identify what's preventing the body from moving forward and then assess the status of the homeostasis and balance in the body and the nutritional status of the body. What's needed, what's necessary to put that body or allow that body? Excuse me, we don't put anything or make anything happen in the body. We give the body the tools to find that homeostatic system balance itself. What does that body need to get back to that state of balance and well being?
 
[00:09:29.730] - Candi Broeffle
And so give us an idea of what does that look like when you do? And this is kind of hard because we're on the radio, so you can't show people. Right? We actually have to describe it pretty well. But what does it look like when you do nutrition response testing?
 
[00:09:43.170] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
So we use primarily muscle testing as our testing device. For those who aren't familiar, muscle testing is a form of applied kinesiology that uses the body's natural reflexes to communicate with the practitioner. I always tell patients, this is how I talk to your body so that I don't have to talk out loud, even though I do sometimes talk out loud to people's bodies, because that's just who I am as a person. But with muscle testing, we use generally an arm as our reflex or an arm as our tester. And I describe it like each body can take on two types of stress at one time. So let's say we're doing an exam or we're doing a checkup with you, Candi, and your brain is doing wonderful. Your brain is not under stress. It doesn't need any attention from us. If I use one of my hands to put a little pressure on an area of your brain, right, just outside of your head, I'm not actually touching your brain. If I add a little stress to that area and it's doing just fine, when I then add stress to your arm, your arm will hold its strength.
 
[00:10:44.560] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
Essentially, you can hold your arm in a locked position. That's two stresses, one on the brain, one on the arm. If we get to a different area that is asking for help. So we've talked about, like with you sugar and eating sugar and that kind of thing, which we can touch on again in a minute if we get to your pancreas regulator of blood sugar and that area is asking for help, it is under stress if I add stress to it with my hand. Now we're already at two types of stress. When I add the third stress to your arm, you can't hold your lock or it unlocks. And that tells me that area needs attention.
 
[00:11:17.750] - Candi Broeffle
So when we come back, we're going to continue this conversation because this is a really remarkable and just gives so much information to us and so I really want people to be able to understand it. But for people who want to learn more about MetroEast Natural Healing Center and to make an appointment, visit NutritionChiropractic.com or call 651-7711 703. You're listening to Green Tea Conversations on AM950 the Progressive Boys in Minnesota. And we will be right back. Welcome back to Green Tea Conversations. I'm your host, Candi Broeffle. And today we're talking with Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel of MetroEast Natural Healing Center in Oakdale. So, Chelsea, just before the break, you were starting to tell us about the nutrition response testing. And I guess something that I want to know myself and also for our listeners who might be interested is what are some of the things that you can find out about the health of somebody through nutrition response testing?
 
[00:12:37.610] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
Absolutely. So I would say as a clinic, we really don't have like one set diagnosis or health condition that we work with. It's very broad spectrum. We'll see, I would say, most commonly digestive issues. People hear the word nutrition and they think of their digestive tract, but it really if you think about the guts as kind of the center of everything, it really goes way beyond that. We work with headaches and allergies and sinus issues, a lot of like aches and pains and pensions, that kind of thing. Old injuries that aren't resolving hormones, which are definitely one of my favorite things. Favorite things anywhere from that brand new menstrual cycle, like young female all the way up through perimenopause and menopausal women. We really have a great time with that. Sleep issues, energy issues, mood, depression, anxiety. It's very broad spectrum because there's two types of intelligence. There's learned intelligence. Right. What we learn from books in school and talking to people, what our brain knows, and then there's innate intelligence, and that's what our body knows. And nutrition response testing allows us to tap into that innate intelligence and really communicate with somebody's physiology.
 
[00:13:50.770] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
What does that body need? Which I really appreciate, I adore. I love biochemistry and physiology and the hormonal system. And we have a big chart in our office that's the entire physiological function of all of the neurotransmitters and the hormones. It's like how energy is made in the body. It's massive. It's like the size of a door. Dr. Fordwang actually bought it from me for my birthday. I think he thought it was a joke, but I'm obsessed with it. Thanks, Doc.
 
[00:14:15.180] - Candi Broeffle
I love it.
 
[00:14:15.780] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
I love linking things together. But oftentimes bodies know more than our human brain knows, and that's where we meet people frequently. As I've been to XYZ practitioner, doctor, I've tried this medication, that therapy, this thing, that thing. And I haven't gotten the results that I want. And that's where muscle testing is so valuable because it lets us put our learned intelligence and our ego away a little bit as providers and really listen to that body. I find that often it's a humbling experience when I get to know somebody and I learn their history, and my brain will go, oh, I bet that's related to an immune challenge or that's definitely a food sensitivity of some kind. And then I get to know their body, and it's like, oh, it's not that at all. It's completely different. And we need to do something different than what they've done or what I assumed they needed in order to help their bodies get back to that balance that they're looking for.
 
[00:15:07.850] - Candi Broeffle
I was so impressed with it myself. So I've been to you quite a few times, and it's just the information that you're able to provide somebody about the challenges that they're having is really just remarkable. Now, I do have to say I have heard from you and then from other practitioners as well that one of my main issues that I was having in my body was inflammation. And I started thinking, you know what? Everybody says that. Everybody says that. So that must just be the thing that everybody says. So I was telling you just before we started that I just chose to quit eating sugar on September 1. And so I haven't had any sugar, any sweeteners of any kind, any honey, any Maple syrup, any aspartame, nothing. And I do eat fruit, so I didn't give up all types of sugar, but just anything artificial or processed, I guess. And I cannot tell you how much better I feel. And it kind of makes me mad because it really was true. It was nutrition after all, and it was inflammation after all. And maybe instead of believing everybody was just saying the same thing, maybe it was because it was the thing.
 
[00:16:34.570] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
Absolutely. Well, we all get there on our own timeline, right? I once heard somebody say, actually a functional medicine doctor was being interviewed, and she was asked, how did you get into kind of functional holistic health care versus the kind of Western conventional model? And she said, people get here one of two ways. They're either smart or they're sick. Right. We either get here because we realize learned I need to do something different. Our society needs me to do something different, or my body needs me to do something different. I'm unwell, and I need to change the way that I'm taking care of myself. And it just really often times we get to that point of, oh, yeah, I do need to change something. I'm going to do that thing that everyone keeps telling me to do because we get to that point with our body and with our well being, where we feel ready to change something.
 
[00:17:25.310] - Candi Broeffle
Exactly. And that is what happened to me. I was just having a lot of aches and pains and figured it was because I was in my 50s now, and that was what was going to be happening. And it's been remarkable, just a difference in how I feel so let's start with talking about sugar and sugar fluency.
 
[00:17:43.870] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
Yes.
 
[00:17:44.320] - Candi Broeffle
So I'm sure this is a topic that you love to talk about as well. So what are some of the problems with sugar? What does it cause in the body?
 
[00:17:54.400] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
Yeah. So sugar I mean, I think everyone's heard the old adage, right? Sugar acts like a drug in the body. It lights up the same pleasure centers in our brain as a lot of the really big scary drugs that we would never do light up and it becomes this reward where we get addicted to it, essentially, and it creates this cycle. Now that cycle leads to a whole bunch of physiological processes that end up being detrimental for our health. We think about sugar. The next kind of thing that comes into my mind is blood sugar. And when we're eating a lot of sugar, we're raising our blood sugar, and we're causing our pancreas to excrete more insulin to deal with that blood sugar. Right. Get the sugar out of the blood and into the cells. And we have a finite ability to do that. When we're highly sugared, we're using a lot of our insulin. Our pancreas gets tired. We get into insulin resistance, prediabetes type two diabetes. But if you think back to that insulin resistance, as we're researching all of the big scary diseases that we're trying to prevent. Right. Alzheimer's, heart disease, cancer, a lot of the other neurological conditions, they're finding that insulin resistance, the body's inability or the cell's inability to respond appropriately to insulin, that is a big link between well being and those big scary things we want to avoid.
 
[00:19:12.530] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
And that all backs up to our sugar consumption. Right. We can look at sugar from an immune system perspective as well. We certainly have talked a lot about the immune system in the last couple of years. Sugar slows down the time that it takes or our immune system's response time to pathogens and bad bugs. Right. We're always in contact with bad bugs. There's bacteria and viruses everywhere. That's our macrobiome that we live in the bug environment outside of us, that's normal. And we should be in that environment. Our body is meant to adapt and respond to that. But when we're loaded up with sugar, we slow down our immune system's ability to respond and adapt and return to that homeostasis that we're looking for. And then we become more susceptible to illness and allergies, and then we're more susceptible to illness and we end up with issues in our gut. Right. There's a big kind of growing awareness that if we're dealing with fungus or Candida yeast overgrowth in the gut or parasites, parasitic issues in the GI tract, that then actually also makes us crave sugar and makes us crave foods that are detrimental to our health.
 
[00:20:22.180] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
So it's really this kind of cycle and roller coaster that does take a decision and takes a little bit of grit to really kind of break that cycle because there's a lot going on physiologically that keeps us kind of on that Ferris wheel.
 
[00:20:37.720] - Candi Broeffle
And there's so much hidden sugars, hidden.
 
[00:20:40.750] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
Oh, my goodness.
 
[00:20:41.420] - Candi Broeffle
That are out there. And sugar is so addictive. As I started doing this, I was, like, so incredibly impressed with how much better I felt that I started to do more reading and watching some Netflix things that they have out on different diet issues. And I don't remember what the chemical is called, but the food industry has actually created a chemical that they put into non sweet foods. So savory type of foods that is actually ten times or 50 times. I don't remember exactly what more potent than sugar in how it acts in your body. And so it makes you crave more. So when you're looking about fast food or you're looking about a processed food, it is in there and it is in there so that you want more of it and you'll buy more of it 100%.
 
[00:21:34.650] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
And we specialize in nutrition based solutions to health problems. And that comes in the form of supplemental support. Right. But also our diet, our food, our style of eating. And I really try to impress us upon our patients. We are not using drugs. Right. We're not using medications to get your body back into balance. We're going to use whole foods, whether that's well, it certainly is dietary adjustments and modifications. We're not putting you on a diet. We're finding the right balance and the optimum eating style for you. But whole food supplements as well, maybe some herbs. Those aren't medications. And I can't beat medications. And I can't beat things that are as addictive as drugs. With whole foods. Right. With diet or with supplemental support, you need drugs to undo the effective drugs to undo something that's as addictive as sugar or ten or 50 times more addictive than sugar. That's where our dependence on medications has really skyrocketed, because we're trying to undo the damage that's being done by the foods that are going in that keep us in that addictive cycle, in that inflamed cycle, in that suppressed immune system cycle, in that messed up gut.
 
[00:22:51.770] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
And then we don't have enough serotonin, and then we're dealing with anxiety and depression. And it's just that whole cycle that really is spurred on by our food. And so the field of nutrition. Oh, yeah. You talk about food, you give people dietary advice. Well, we're really trying to change people's lives and bring them back into balance.
 
[00:23:10.040] - Candi Broeffle
Yes. And it is, again, remarkable what will happen to your body when you do.
 
[00:23:15.240] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
Absolutely.
 
[00:23:15.680] - Candi Broeffle
Take it from the person who bought it all away. So for people who want to learn more about Metro East Natural Healing Center and to make an appointment with Chelsea, visit NutritionChiropractic.com. To read the online version of Natural Awakenings magazine, visit NaturalTwinCities.com. You can find a podcast of this show on AM950Radio.com on Apple and Google podcasts, and anywhere you get your podcast, you're listening to Green Tea Conversations on AM 950, the Progressive Voice of Minnesota. And we will be right back. 

Welcome back to Green Tea Conversations. I'm your host, Candi Broeffle. And today we're talking with Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel of MetroEast Natural Healing Center in Oakdale. So, Chelsea, just before the break, we were talking about one aspect of our diet that has a huge impact on our bodies, which is sugar and our addiction to sugar in our society. But I know one of the things that you are really passionate about is educating people about the ketogenic diet.
 
[00:24:38.490] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
Yes.
 
[00:24:39.130] - Candi Broeffle
So I'm sure nearly everyone knows what the ketogenic diet is, but do they really know what it is? So I'm going to ask you to give us kind of a background of what it is and then why you find it so important to use with your clients.
 
[00:24:53.870] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
Absolutely. So a ketogenic diet. Right. Keto for short, big buzzword in the last five, maybe eight years. It's a low carbohydrate, kind of moderate protein, moderate to high fat diet. I describe it that way because when we say low carb, high fat people hear high fat and they get really kind of frazzled about that. It flips the idea of low fat diet really on its head, but it's focused on flipping or changing the way that we burn fuel in our body. So if you look at kind of the standard American usual typical diet, we are burning glucose. We're burning sugar for fuel. And that puts us into a sugar burning. Right. I eat sugar or I eat carbohydrates that turn into sugar. My blood sugar goes up. I use insulin to move that sugar into my cells for energy. If there's excess sugar around that actually gets stored as fat or adipose. And then my blood sugar drops and I need more sugar, and it puts us onto this kind of cycle. In a ketogenic diet, the goal is we're eating lower carbs, but we're eating more protein and more fat. And so we're on a more stable regulatory kind of metabolic path.
 
[00:26:03.820] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
So we're eating lower carb, higher fat. And what happens is we flip into a fat burning mode internally. So instead of burning sugar, we're actually burning fat for fuel. The breakdown of fats, whether that's dietary or body fat produces ketone bodies. That's part of why we call this a ketogenic diet. And those ketone bodies become the fuel for the majority of the cells in our body instead of glucose or sugar. And so we get off of that cycle of blood sugar spike, insulin, blood sugar drop. I need more carbs and more sugar, and we get a more clean kind of steady burning metabolic situation. Now there are some cells in our body that need glucose to function. Our body can make glucose for the cells that need it. So your brain will not starve if you're not eating copious amounts of carbohydrates.
 
[00:26:53.520] - Candi Broeffle
Okay. So what do you think is maybe some of the common mistakes that people make with a ketogenic diet?
 
[00:27:00.630] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
Absolutely.
 
[00:27:01.120] - Candi Broeffle
Because I know everybody was doing it for a long time, and sometimes it's very successful for people, and sometimes it's not. So, yeah, what do you think is the difference?
 
[00:27:11.750] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
Definitely. So when I talk about keto, I really try to emphasize the fact that it has benefits. It was actually originally researched for treatment of medication resistant epilepsy back in the 1920s at Mayo. So it's been around for a very long time. And its benefits go way beyond what people usually find it for. Right. Weight loss is why people get there. It works well for weight loss because of that fat burning, but it's antiinflammatory. It's great for blood sugar regulation. It can improve cognitive function and energy levels. It's really healthy for our cardiovascular health, even though it's a little bit higher in fat. And I like to think of weight loss as a side effect, and that's one of the things I really try to impress upon people. Think about all of the other benefits of this diet, and then you get weight loss as a side effect. And that mental shift usually makes it more successful for people. When we take the focus off of what's happening on the scale as the measure of our results, when we shift our dietary style, there's a handful of keto fo paws, one that I made. I actually follow about 90% of the time a more ketogenic style of eating and have for close to six years.
 
[00:28:22.130] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
But one of the kind of mistakes that I was making early on was really fixating on meeting an amount of fat goal. Right. So I would look at all right, my carbs are low, and I need to make sure I get 120 grams of fat in a day. So I would eat a tablespoon of butter or coconut oil or something like that. Even though I wasn't hungry, there was no reason for me to do that. My husband thought I was crazy. He still probably does.
 
[00:28:47.110] - Candi Broeffle
But less about your diet.
 
[00:28:50.550] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
Not about my diet, just about our cats, and still about my diet a little bit. But I was really fixated on fat as a goal. But in a ketogenic diet, we use fat as a lever. We can increase or decrease our fat intake based on how hungry we are, how we're feeling as far as satisfaction after meals, how active and how busy we are. It's meant to be a tool that goes up and down versus something we have to hit, and that makes it feel a little bit less stressful to be in that high fat state as well. Another big focus with keto, and this comes back on to fat as well as the type of fat that we're eating. Just because it is a high fat diet does not mean it's a free for all of inflammatory processed oils. We still want to avoid those Omega six, the soybean and vegetable oil and margarine and any type of trans fats, hydrogenated oil, anything like that. Those oils are inherently inflammatory. And so we want to focus on olive oil, avocado oil, coconut oil, nuts, seeds, fatty fish, grass fed butter. The fats that are going to help reduce inflammation in the body, those are the fat sources that we want, definitely.
 
[00:30:02.370] - Candi Broeffle
So a lot of a big side effect of the ketogenic diet is, of course, the helicopters that we get.
 
[00:30:11.250] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
Yes.
 
[00:30:12.280] - Candi Broeffle
Bad breath, Dragon breath. And being in that, is that normal? Is that what you want to get to? Is that kind of the goal, to get to that area where you're burning that much ketones?
 
[00:30:27.890] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
That's typically a side effect early on, because when our body for most people, we have not been in a state of ketosis where we're burning fat since we were infants and we were being breastfed. So if we've gone 30, 40, 50, 60 years without burning fat, when our body finally kind of clicks into that mode and it can take four to seven days, sometimes a little bit longer for people to really get into, OK, I'm burning fat. Our body kind of goes gangbusters, and it's like, all right, we're breaking it down and we're excreting it all over the place. There's ketones. There are three types of ketones. One that's excreted through our breath. That's what creates the kind of halitosis Dragon breath situation. One that's excreted in urine and then the one that circulates in our blood and the excess ketones that we're making and excreting, that's usually against that side effect early on. The number one way to kind of deal with that is to make sure that you're staying really hydrated and to pay attention to your electrolytes, because that helps the body kind of flush and balance that new ketone body that it's not used to having.
 
[00:31:24.370] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
It helps keep that kind of regulated and in balance.
 
[00:31:28.470] - Candi Broeffle
And what is your most recommended way to balance your electrolytes? What do you recommend for your clients?
 
[00:31:37.370] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
Yes. So we carry in the clinic, we have the body health, perfect aminos electrolyte. Think of Gatorade, but without the scary, creepy ingredients and colors. Element or element. Tea is another really nice electrolyte. Replenisher Ultima. That's a great one that you can get at fresh thyme, whole foods, that kind of thing. The same way you would supplement electrolytes after a sports game, just without the sugar bone broth is another really excellent way to get additional electrolytes and minerals in, especially in the winter around here, to make soups with that as your base and then using really high quality salt. Right. High quality sea salt. That's going to give you a wide variety of minerals and electrolytes. And then that's really helpful as well. And for people who are transitioning to keto, you actually want to make sure you're getting enough salt, especially if you're cutting out a lot of processed foods, you're going to go from maybe a salt kind of excess to maybe a salt depletion. And so watching that mineral electrolyte salt balance is really important.
 
[00:32:42.990] - Candi Broeffle
People don't realize if you eat a lot of processed foods, how much salt you're intaking and then how weak and just tired and all of that that you'll get when you cut that out.
 
[00:32:55.320] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
Absolutely. Salt has really been kind of blamed for a lot of things. And it's not high quality salt. That's the issue. It's the excess in the processed foods and the other ingredients in the processed foods that cause issues.
 
[00:33:09.840] - Candi Broeffle
Yes. So you actually at the clinic, you guys have some free classes. So if people want to learn more about the ketogenic diet, you have a series of classes that you offer, is that correct?
 
[00:33:22.460] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
Yes. So I teach it's a three part series. Keto One Keto for Beginners. Right. How do you do this thing? How do you transition? How do you prepare your home? What do you eat? How much do you eat? What don't you eat? I call it the Kete no. And the keto. Yeah. Foods list. Like, what are we what the heck is even going on here? Right. So that's kind of the introduction. And the goal is that you can walk out of that class and you could get started tomorrow or next week. Then we've got the Keto Part two, Keto 2.0, Keto Advanced, which is really taking it beyond the basics. So for somebody who has been following a ketogenic diet and is looking to fine tune things a little bit, I'm doing great, but I feel a little stuck on this or I was feeling better and having more energy and less inflammation, and now something has changed. What are some modifications or adjustments we might want to make? Or I'm interested in maybe trying intermittent fasting. Right. We discussed intermittent fasting in that Keto Two class, the third class, and this is actually the next one that's up on the docket.
 
[00:34:23.290] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
It's coming up on May 18, which is a Wednesday I hope is our keto for women. So it's very kind of female hormone specific. And the reason that this is its own class is because women coming into May, it's women's health and hormone month. Women have a different metabolic situation than men and often need adjustments to a ketogenic diet that's different than males needs. So we go specifically into where are you at? Hormonally. Right. Are you menstruating? Are your periods irregular? Are you trying to get your periods back, dealing with PCOS perimenopause menopause, whatever it may be specific to that female hormonal system, what modifications may want to make to that ketogenic diet as far as carbs and protein and fat intake and that type of thing.
 
[00:35:17.430] - Candi Broeffle
So for people who want to learn more about the classes and to make an appointment, Chelsea, visit MetroEastNaturalHealingCenter.com. You can also call 651-771-1703. You're listening to Green Tea Conversations on AM 950, the Progressive Voice of Minnesota. And we will be right back. 

Welcome back to Green Tea Conversations. I'm your host, Candi Broeffle. And today we're talking with Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel of MetroEast Natural Healing Center in Oakdale. So, Chelsea, we have been talking about the ketogenic diet. We've been talking about sugar addiction. Now I want to touch on a bit about something that you had talked about earlier, which is hormone health for women. That is always such a big topic. Maybe it's my age, but it's always such a big topic, I think, for most people. So when you're working with somebody who's coming in with maybe perimenopause or menopause issues, how do you help them from the evaluation through kind of the treatments that you suggest that they do?
 
[00:36:47.010] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
Absolutely. Well, I will say it's definitely not just your age. I'm not quite to Perry menopause or menopause yet, but this is my absolute favorite topic to talk about this all day long. So when it comes to a patient who comes in with hormonal concerns. Right, it's not uncommon that they will come in with maybe some type of diagnosis. My thyroid is XYZ or I was told that I have adrenal fatigue or adrenal exhaustion, something like that. I think I have hormonal imbalance, that kind of thing. The big thing that I think is really important and something that we do very well in our clinic is letting that body identify what the starting point is for what's going on with the hormonal system. We've gotten into a really common kind of mindset when it comes to our health that every organ and every system is separate. Right. I have a thyroid condition, so I go see my thyroid doctor. I have a GI issues. So I go see the gastroenterologist. But everything in our body is connected, especially in our endocrine or our hormonal system. There's a chart that came out way back in the 1910s.
 
[00:37:53.640] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
Henry Harrower, who is the father of modern Endocrinology. It's his chart, and it links together all of the hormonal organs. Right. The hypothalamus, pituitary, thyroid, adrenal glands, the ovaries. The testes actually includes the digestive tract, the pancreas, the heart, the liver. All of these organs are technically hormonal, and they're all linked together like one big web, kind of like in a Crime, you know, an episode of CSI or something where there's pictures and maps and red pins and strings linking everything together. We can't impact one hormonal organ or really any organ in the body without impacting every other organ in that web. So when we work with a patient who comes in with a hormonal concern, whatever hormonal organ is symptomatic or has been measured and deemed hyper or hypo, whatever it is, that's not usually the main issue. There's something else in that web that's out of whack or out of balance. And so we want to assess the hormonal system and really the body as a whole, so that we start in the right place, the big ones. Right. We think about adrenals, ovaries and thyroid. Those organs are controlled by the same two glands in our brain, the hypothalamus and the pituitary.
 
[00:39:01.640] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
So if the hypothalamus and pituitary are funky, the adrenal glands and thyroid are going to be out of whack as well. We can't just treat the thyroid or just treat the adrenals. We have to start at the top of that food chain and figure out where the imbalance is really coming from and why that's happening for somebody.
 
[00:39:18.780] - Candi Broeffle
So what are some of the common recommendations that you guys make? I know each person is different, so we don't want to get into this is how we treat this, but just kind of getting an idea of what some of the different modalities or the things that you recommend for people to do.
 
[00:39:33.930] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
Of course, nutrition. Right. So there always is a big focus on eating style. And when we look at nutrition and connect that with hormones, the big link there is blood sugar. And that comes back to our conversation about sugar, about the ketogenic diet. If our blood sugar is dysregulated, our endocrine system is dysregulated. If we have excess blood sugar, we're going to get wonky levels of estrogen and progesterone. And that will affect us whether we just had our first period or we haven't thought about our periods in 510 or 20 years. Right. We still have estrogen and progesterone no matter where we are in that female life cycle. And our blood sugar. And regulating blood sugar is one of the most vitally important things we can do to let the body balance out our hormones. We really focus on what do we need to do? What pattern do you need to eat in as an individual? Are we talking three meals a day? Do you need snacks at this point to regulate your blood sugar? And what is the composition of that look like? Really focus on whole food, veggies, maybe some fruit, high quality proteins, getting away from the kind of package and processed proteins and using fat, again, kind of as that fuel source, whether it's the amount that's on a ketogenic diet or not, really rounding out when we're eating so that we're reaching that blood sugar balance is intermittent fasting.
 
[00:40:51.650] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
A good tool for you at this point in time or based on what's going on with your hormones, do we want to make sure that we're actually not over fasting and we're just really nourishing the body. So we look at that kind of blood sugar perspective. Another big one. And this has been such a hot topic in the last two years as well, is actually looking at our stress levels and what's going on with our body's ability to adapt to stress. A little bit of a stress, acute stress, not that big of a deal, but when we get into a chronic state of stress, and we see those kind of chronically high levels of cortisol. We end up with blood sugar dysregulation or back to blood sugar. What do you know? But we also end up with a downregulation of our female reproductive hormones. So the same kind of precursor hormone makes cortisol, that makes estrogen, testosterone, progesterone. We're in this chronically high stress state. We're going to see all of that precursor and most of that precursor hormone go into producing cortisol to try to deal with that stress from a hormonal perspective, and then we get a downregulation.
 
[00:41:56.120] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
Most importantly of progesterone, progesterone is a prolife progestation hormone. If we're really stressed, we're not trying to procreate. Right. Progesterone also helps with cognitive function and brain and bone and breast health and all of these other really important things. So if you're not worried about your fertility, progesterone is important for other reasons as well. We really do emphasize what needs to happen in your life to reduce your stress levels. What do you need to do for yourself as far as getting out of that chronically high state of stress so that hormonally things can balance out? And again, the goal is to help your body return to homeostasis. We, of course, get into diet. Are we dealing with food sensitivities that are causing inflammation? Is there some underlying immune imbalance that stresses the gut? That again, adds more stress, makes us tired, messes with how we digest food and the nutrients we get out of our food. So even if we're eating really well, we don't get all of our nutrients out of it. So very varied. Like you said, everyone is unique, but blood sugar regulation, stress, and then really addressing what's going on kind of internally at that gut level as well.
 
[00:42:58.230] - Candi Broeffle
I said this before, and I will just reiterate it a bit too, but it really is true. I think I've struggled with my weight. I've struggled with health issues for quite some time. And I've heard only for about 45 or 50 years that it was my nutrition. And it really is so really ever since I have started this moderate diet, not eating the sugar, my menopausal symptoms have greatly reduced. I mean, hot flashes, anything like that. So sorry for all the men who are listening, but this is a health and wellness show, and I will talk about this stuff.
 
[00:43:33.190] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
Yes.
 
[00:43:33.690] - Candi Broeffle
But it has all gone away. And so it really makes such a huge difference. Such a huge difference. So for people who want to learn more, what are some of the opportunities that you guys provide to new patients or people who want to just come in and kind of explore what you guys do?
 
[00:43:54.320] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
Absolutely. So in the clinic, we hold a variety of workshops. Of course, I mentioned the ketogenic diet classes, but I also do some workshops. A big one, a popular one is our stress management workshop. We talk about toxicity. We talk about the immune system, a general kind of healthy habits class. Dr. Furlong teaches our how to Accelerate your Healing class, and this is really kind of our introduction to the clinic. He teaches it two times a month, and we've actually gotten virtual with it for those who are a little further away or want to get to know the clinic before they step into the clinic. We do have virtual opportunities now as well, which is phenomenal. So that's the kind of biggest step, kind of introductory step into the clinic. And all of that information is on our website, nutrition, Chiropractic calm for those who want to get to know us, but maybe on a slightly less formal foot. Our social media is actually something that we've been putting a lot of effort into really creating that space that's educational and comfortable and has a personalized touch to it. Each of our staff members and practitioners contributes educational pieces, videos, write ups on recommendations and habits and tips so that through our social media, you get a little bit of a feel for us and who we are as people.
 
[00:45:12.630] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
And you can kind of feel out if that's somewhere that you want to be and spend time and are interested in getting to know a little bit more about.
 
[00:45:18.530] - Candi Broeffle
Yes, you guys have some great stuff on YouTube, too. You have a series that you're doing right now. Is that as a practitioner or something like that?
 
[00:45:26.760] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
Yeah, like our live, weekly live Q and A, so that's every Friday it happens on Instagram, but then I believe it gets posted to Facebook. I am not in charge of our social media. We have a wonderful woman who does that, but that's every Friday at 1215. And we are going through and answering questions that our patients or our social media followers are submitting. So I'm actually up tomorrow, we're going to talk about parasites. That's a big topic in our clinic, parasite cleansing and some of our tools for that, symptoms related to parasites, that type of thing. And kind of an honor of May coming up in that women's health and hormone mindset, I'm going to talk a little bit about seed cycling as well, which is a really incredible hormonal tool. But every Friday it's a different practitioner. So myself, Dr. Furlong, and our health coaches actually are a part of that as well. And they do a phenomenal job talking about how do I get my spouse on board with dietary changes? What can I do when I'm traveling to stay as healthy as possible? So it's a really fun series.
 
[00:46:24.920] - Candi Broeffle
Well, Chelsea, thank you so much for being with us today. Thank you so much for your time and your expertise. It really has been a pleasure having you on the show.
 
[00:46:33.780] - Chelsea Kazmierczak-Goethel
Thank you so much for having me. Candi. This was an absolute blast. My husband will be thrilled that I got to talk for almost an hour about health and wellness with somebody other than him, he'll be excited. But this really has been such a pleasure and we're so grateful for everything that you do over at Natural Awakenings, just really helping to educate our community and provide resources for people who are looking for more answers for their health and wellness.
 
[00:46:57.560] - Candi Broeffle
We couldn't do it without you. So thank you again. So for people who want to learn more about MetroEast Natural Healing Center and to make an appointment, visit NutritionChiropractic.com to read the online version of Natural Awakenings magazine, visit NaturalTwinCities.com you can find a podcast on this show on AM950Radio.com on Apple and Google podcasts and anywhere you get your podcast, you're listening to green tea conversations on AM950 the Progressive Voice of Minnesota and I am wishing for you, a lovely day.