Episode 341: Building Your Autoimmune Tool Kit
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In this episode, Erin is joined by The Funk’tional Nutritionist’s new practitioner and Collective Community Manager, Nicole Antes, RD. They dive into creating an Autoimmune Healing Tool kit—a personalized approach to managing autoimmune conditions and supporting your body during flares. Nicole shares her extensive experience working with clients with autoimmunity, emphasizing the importance of addressing both symptoms and root causes to rebalance the immune system.
Interested in working with Nicole in our Functional C.A.R.E. Method™ 1:1 services? We have limited spots available to get started! Send us your application here.
In this episode:
What is an autoimmune healing tool kit? [9:50]
Diet recommendations for autoimmunity [17:30]
How to figure out food triggers [22:42]
Lifestyle considerations for autoimmunity [31:26]
Importance of supporting detoxification [37:00]
Supplements to support autoimmunity [39:14]
Resources mentioned:
Funk’tional Nutrition Collective (Open for enrollment January 7th!)
Functional C.A.R.E. Method™ 1:1 Services
Eat to Achieve™ (Available for free within the Funk’tional Nutrition Collective)
Bon Charge (Use code FUNK to save 15%)
Organifi supplement powder (save 20% on your order with code FUNK)
LMNT Electrolyte Replenishing powder (Use code FUNK get a free sample pack with any purchase!)
Qualia Life (Get up to 50% off and an extra 15% off your first purchase with link + code FUNKS)
Learn more about Autoimmunity
Related episodes:
226: Understanding Autoimmunity Series: What Is It, What Causes It, & Can It Be Cured?
227: Understanding Autoimmunity Series: Components, Stages, & Conventional Testing
228: Understanding Autoimmunity Series: What Sets the Stage for Autoimmunity
230: Understanding Autoimmunity Series: Triggers, Root Causes & Functional Labs
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Erin Holt [00:00:02]:
I'm Erin Holt and this is the Funk'tional Nutrition Podcast where we lean into intuitive functional medicine. We look at how diet, our environment, our emotions and our beliefs all affect our physical health. This podcast is your full bodied, well rounded resource. I've got over a decade of clinical experience and because of that, I've got a major bone to pick with diet culture and the conventional healthcare model. They're both failing so many of us. But functional medicine isn't the panacea that it's made out to be either. We've got some work to do, and that's why creating a new model is my life's work.
Erin Holt [00:00:37]:
I believe in the ripple effect, so.
Erin Holt [00:00:39]:
I founded the Funk'tional Nutrition Academy, a school and mentorship for practitioners who want to do the same. This show is for you if you're looking for new ways of thinking about your health and you're ready to be an active participant in your own healing, Please keep in mind this podcast is created for educational purposes only and should never be used as a replacement for medical diagnosis or treatment. I would love for you to follow the show, rate, review and share because you never know whose life you might change and of course, keep coming back for more.
Erin Holt [00:01:12]:
Hi friends, we're back and I have a pal on the show with me today, Nicole Antes, who is our new practitioner here at the Funk'tional Nutritionist. Hi, Nicole.
Nicole Antes [00:01:23]:
Hi. I'm so excited to be here.
Erin Holt [00:01:26]:
Are you ready for this?
Nicole Antes [00:01:27]:
I totally am.
Erin Holt [00:01:29]:
So Nicole has been taking on some of our one to one clients in the Functional C.A.R.E. Method™, and she's also the Collective community manager. And I do want to just shout that out because we are officially reopening the Collective January 7th. So get ready. The Collective is a holistic health membership that really is designed to meet you at any step of your health journey. So whether you're sort of at the beginning of that journey and you just are really focused on trying to remove processed foods from your diet, which is a really worthy goal, we can help you out with that. If you're more focused on eating to regulate metabolic health, blood sugar regulation, we can help you out with that. If you really want to balance your hormones, if this is the year that you're like, I'm tackling hormones, awesome. The Collective can help you do that or if you want to work on your healing mindset.
Erin Holt [00:02:19]:
So we're really ready to support you wherever you are on that journey and I'm really excited to get started. Open that back up. So if you want to get on the waitlist for that, you can head to the funktionalnutritionist.com/collective. We'll link it up in the show notes. But like I said, we will officially be opening it January 7th. So that's awesome. Today though, today what we're going to focus on is autoimmunity. Nicole has a lot of experience working with clients with autoimmunity.
Erin Holt [00:02:47]:
And that's really what we want to get into today. I'm curious, Nicole, how or why that is something that you're really passionate about? Autoimmunity?
Nicole Antes [00:02:57]:
Yeah, absolutely. I feel like because autoimmunity, it's such a big thing to tackle, like there's no cure for autoimmunity. It's something that's kind of a lifelong journey that people have to live with. I don't have autoimmunity personally, but I've had experiences with autoimmune flares and with some kind of subtle autoimmune symptoms. So I think being able to empower people to know how to kind of manage their autoimmunity and not let it control their lives is such a big thing to be able to do.
Erin Holt [00:03:24]:
Absolutely. And I mean, some folks have a diagnosable autoimmune disease and some folks have maybe a cluster of mystery syndromes that sort of fall into the autoimmune bucket, but they haven't received a diagnosis because we know how tricky, complex and time consuming that can be to actually get a diagnosis. So maybe you have a positive ANA that might indicate, hey, there's some autoimmune going on. Everything that we're going to talk about today will apply to you whether you've got the diagnosed autoimmune disease or you just have random weird symptoms that no practitioner can really explain. If you do have a diagnosed autoimmune disease. One thing I want to address right out of the jump here is because I hear this so often and Nicole, I know that you do too. Where let's say somebody has RA, for example, rheumatoid arthritis, or they have Hashimoto's or insert any other autoimmune condition. What we'll often hear is how do I heal this insert condition.
Erin Holt [00:04:31]:
And what I really try to get folks to understand is that we can address autoimmunity. It doesn't really matter, the specific individual diagnosis doesn't matter as much as you think it might. So it really depends on where somebody is in the autoimmune process. If they're sort of like further along in the autoimmune process, we might want to focus more on symptom resolution and organs or the system systems that are being affected. But we have to understand that autoimmunity is essentially just an imbalance in the immune system. So it's an immune system disorder with some type of fallout.
Erin Holt [00:05:11]:
So Hashimoto's, for example, is an immune system disorder with an endocrine follow because it's impacting an endocrine organ, your thyroid, but it's not an issue with the thyroid gland itself. It can become that, but that's not where it starts. And so oftentimes, when we're addressing autoimmunity, we're really addressing it from the root. And that can look very similar even if you have different autoimmune diagnosis. Would you agree with that, Nicole?
Nicole Antes [00:05:39]:
Yeah, I think that's such an amazing point, honestly, as I'm, like, thinking about what kind of role that I take on with supporting people with autoimmunity. It often does look the same. Maybe there's some small tweaks, but. But generally it looks the same because you're exactly right. It's stemming from kind of one point of the immune system and inflammation that we could tackle.
Erin Holt [00:05:58]:
I just had a discovery call with somebody who wants to work with us for eczema specifically. She has eczema, really bad eczema on her hands to the point where she can't close them. So it's impacting her life. And her question for me was a really, really good question. She was like, okay, so working with your team, it's not just about topical stuff that I would put on my hands to reduce the rash. It's more of what we would be doing internally. And I'm like, actually, it's kind of an end of both. Like, we want to triage the symptoms.
Erin Holt [00:06:28]:
We want the person feeling better. We want to get you feeling better by looking at those symptoms and saying, okay, what could we do to reduce those symptoms? But we're also simultaneously addressing the root causes and the triggers, because that is the opportunity to begin to rebalance the immune system. And when I think about root causes or even triggers, I really think about six different categories or buckets. And this is what, when we're doing root cause investigation with our autoimmune clients, this is what we're looking for. So the first one would be food, what you're eating. Right. As nutritionists, we usually like to start there, what their diet is. The second one would be microbiome.
Erin Holt [00:07:10]:
So the health of our overall gut, but specifically the microbiome, the critters that are living in the gut. Third would be infections. And so I'm seeing a ton of GI map stool tests right now and I kind of put these in different categories. Obviously the infection can be in the microbiome, part of the microbiome. There can be dysbiosis there. But we can see a lot of immune system shifts. Even if there's no infection present, even if there's no overgrowth present, even if there's no pathogen present, if the overall beneficial species are suppressed, are low, we can still see that interrupt the immune process, the immune system that can contribute to ongoing inflammation. So we kind of want to address it from, from both angles.
Erin Holt [00:07:52]:
The beneficial species, how are they looking? And then do we have any overgrowths of not so beneficial things? The fourth category would be toxicants, environmental toxicants, environmental exposures. We need to talk about detox and drainage pathways. Fifth category would be nervous system resiliency. Stress. How much stress can your body tolerate? How much stress is your body under? How much stress was your body under at the onset of your symptoms and your health issues? And then sixth is the mindset and the belief work. What's happening at the level of the subconscious. So these can all be contributing factors to the autoimmune process. We can look at these as root causes or triggers.
Erin Holt [00:08:31]:
This is where the immune system starts to become out of balance. And if we address these things, we can bring it back into balance. So we're not gonna get into any of that today really. But I did wanna lay the foundation and lay the groundwork that information does exist for you. I did a whole ass series called Understanding Autoimmunity. We will link all four episodes up in the show. Notes, episode two. 226, 227, 228 and 230.
Erin Holt [00:09:02]:
So that is really unpacking, doing a huge deep dive on autoimmunity. What it is, what causes it, what are the different stages, what are the different testing available, both from a conventional standpoint and a functional medicine standpoint, and understanding your unique triggers and roots. Because those six categories I mentioned, we might not find all six in one person. We might find two, we might find three. But those are all things that when we're doing our investigative research, we're looking at all six of those categories. But for today, today we're going to get into how to build your what Nicole refers to as autoimmune healing toolkit. So let's start with that. Nicole, what is an autoimmune healing toolkit?
Nicole Antes [00:09:50]:
Yeah, Great question. The autoimmune healing toolkit can be used in so many different ways. And I think the kind of way you just set the groundwork works perfectly for what we're going to talk about. Because a lot of the things that we're looking at when we're working with someone with autoimmunity play into how we build their autoimmune healing toolkit. And basically that toolkit is basically, it's a personalized set of tools, strategies, practices that somebody finds helpful in their healing journey. And the purpose of, of that toolkit is to empower that person to give them the tools that then they know how to manage their symptoms. Obviously they're working with us, we're helping them find those tools, build their toolkit.
Nicole Antes [00:10:27]:
But the end goal is to be able to go off on your own and be able to manage your symptoms and kind of take back your health and know how to support your body.
Erin Holt [00:10:36]:
Yeah, and I think that's an important point too, because our goal in working with folks, we know that we can't rush healing, first of all, I'll say that. But our goal is to get you feeling better in the least amount of time, number one. And that timeline looks very different for different people. But also we want to give you the tools to ride off into the sunset so you're not reliant upon us forever. And we've both worked with a lot of people, and when somebody starts to feel better for the first time in our care, there can be a little bit of an attachment formed and there can be like, lack of confidence in their own capacity to heal. So they're like, okay, well I got better working with you. And they get nervous to go off on their own. And so because they think that they're, you know, something's gonna happen or they're not gonna feel as good.
Erin Holt [00:11:30]:
And so we always love to arm our clients with the tools and the resources to navigate things on their own without feeling like they need us forever and ever and ever. So would you describe these, I talk a lot about health non negotiables, so would you put the healing toolkit in that category?
Nicole Antes [00:11:56]:
Absolutely. I think there's kind of two ways you can think about your healing toolkit. One would be your kind of non negotiables, things that you're doing every day in your daily routine. Because I know, I'm sure you've talked about this on the podcast before, but everything that we do in our day to day basis, like our daily routine, that is the foundation of our health, the little things that we do every day that kind of contribute to our health are super important. And so we can have that version of our toolkit, of our daily routine, things that we do every day that create the baseline for like our diet, our lifestyle to contribute to our health. But we can also have the more specialized version of our toolkit that maybe we bring in more specialized tools that maybe they're not our non negotiables, but they're things that can help us with when maybe we're in an autoimmune flare or maybe when we're off our normal routine. I think a really good example that you had just talked through on this podcast is when you were traveling about talking through all the different things that you bring with you to support your body. Maybe those aren't non negotiables because you're not doing them every day, all of those things, but they can be things that you add in in specialized times to support your body.
Erin Holt [00:12:58]:
Yeah, like we can ramp up the support. September is kind of a wonky time I have found for autoimmune folks. And I don't know if that's just. Just in my area. So I'm in New Hampshire and there's a big season shift in September where we go from like hot, hot heat into like the season, it changes drastically the weather from day to day.
Erin Holt [00:13:19]:
And so that can just be like a little like, whoa, like destabilizing. But I've noticed that there is. And you know, from a sort of a emotional perspective too, fall is the season of grief where things are falling away. And so I think fall things kind of come up to the surface for us. And when things come up to the surface and we don't have the tools to handle what's going on emotionally, our body can kind of take the hit and it can play out through our physical body. So I think there's physical things happening, emotional things happening, energetic things happening. But for whatever reason, September definitely tends to be the time where myself and other autoimmune clients that we've worked with really have to ramp up support to prevent those flare ups or to moderate those flare ups, because it's a pretty common time for things to get flared up.
Erin Holt [00:14:05]:
So I like thinking about the toolkit as, like daily, like non negotiables. This is how I just run my life. And then I also have like an extra toolkit to support myself during a time of flare or when I typically would flare to prevent that flare. I think that's that's helpful context to set.
Erin Holt [00:17:24]:
So let's get into like what makes up an actual toolkit. Where would you start?
Nicole Antes [00:17:30]:
Yeah, great question. I think one thing I want to say as well with the toolkit is everybody's toolkit looks different depending on what your symptoms are, like what your lifestyle is like, what your condition that you have is like. I know we mentioned with autoimmunity a lot of what we're working on can look similar from autoimmune condition from one to another, but everybody's unique. So everybody's tools that work for them are going to be a little bit different. But I think the most important part of your toolkit, which of course is going to be the most important because we're nutritionists, is your diet, the food that you're eating. Because with autoimmunity it can have such a big impact on your autoimmune symptoms, inflammation, all of that. So diet for sure.
Erin Holt [00:18:10]:
Where would you start with that? Is there like one diet that you recommend for all autoimmune people or is there some consistent things?
Nicole Antes [00:18:19]:
Yeah, great question. There's not one diet in particular. I think what I would go back to is maybe you can consider this a diet, but like an anti inflammatory whole foods diet. So just going back to basics, making sure that you're trying to do your best where you can to eat organic fruits and veggies, whole foods like quality, good quality animal proteins, whole grains, things like that, like getting back to basics with our food.
Erin Holt [00:18:44]:
Do you find, have you found in. Because there's a whole thought process that grains are not conducive to autoimmune health. Have you found based off of your work with a lot of autoimmune patients that that is always true, sometimes true, never true?
Nicole Antes [00:19:09]:
I think it depends on where that person at is in their autoimmune journey. Just because there is so many different phases. I totally agree. Maybe somebody new to their autoimmune journey has a lot of symptoms, not good control over their flares, maybe grains is something that we need to take out because it's not going to be helping with getting them to a spot where they're in a more state where they're healed, they're in remission, but maybe somebody that's more advanced in their journey, that has a good grasp on what works for them, what doesn't work for them, they have a little bit more leeway of consuming certain grains. I definitely think there's foods for sure that across the board maybe potentially don't work with people with autoimmunity. But I don't want to say it's black and white, all or never. I think there's room for some, some freedom in there.
Erin Holt [00:19:52]:
Yeah, black and white rarely gets us very far in terms of health. And that's one thing I can say anecdotally, is that when I was very symptomatic, things were really not. My symptoms were not controlled with the autoimmune process. I had to be a bit more rigid with my food, with what I ate and what I didn't eat. And now I have a little bit more flexibility, a little bit more freedom. I also really understand the signs from my body if I'm pushing things too far or if I got a little too loose and fast with the food. And I'm able to like pull it back without a fear spiral because I understand what's contributing to it. So you said that grains for me is like a sometimes food.
Erin Holt [00:20:34]:
If I eat the heavy grains diet, not always the best for me, but I also can eat some grains totally fine. You said that there are some foods that you find consistently to being not so great for autoimmunity. What would those be?
Nicole Antes [00:20:49]:
Yeah, great question. I feel like these are the top three foods that people hear a lot about, they read a lot about, but it's gluten, dairy, and nightshades across the board. I've seen just in my experience working with people with autoimmunity, those just tend to flare up their autoimmune symptoms, or at least on some level they're contributing to that baseline inflammation that is triggering symptoms for them. So again, it's not always that people need to avoid those foods. I think there is some personalization and individualization that happens there, or like, maybe you can tolerate some to a certain degree. But with most people, if they're doing all three of those foods, a lot of the time, they tend to not handle them very well.
Erin Holt [00:21:26]:
So do you sometimes feel that the poison makes the dose with those things? Or totally depends.
Nicole Antes [00:21:32]:
It depends. But for a lot of people I do think dose makes the poison for sure.
Erin Holt [00:21:37]:
Did I say it though? I said it the wrong way, didn't I? I think so. The poison makes the dose, the dose makes the poison. Anyway, what I mean by that is like how much you eat matters. Maybe you can get away with a little bit, but you can't get away with a lot. Can you define nightshades in case somebody's not familiar with that term?
Nicole Antes [00:21:56]:
Yeah, absolutely. Nightshades would be, think like peppers, eggplants, tomatoes, even going down to seasonings like paprika, like anything pepper based would be your nightshades.
Erin Holt [00:22:07]:
And those can be, those can contribute to the inflammatory process in some people and that is the one. So gluten and dairy, it's like it's either causing an immune reaction or it's not. Whereas with nightshades I feel like that's more dose dependent. Where you can get away in some people get away with eating not so much. But if you're going to eat an eggplant parm that has tomatoes, eggplant, maybe some spice in there like three days in a row, your joints might start feeling the effects of that. How do you help people suss out their trigger foods? Because that's essentially what we're talking about. So we want to lay the foundation of eating an anti inflammatory diet. But then there might be some trigger foods that somebody has to avoid.
Erin Holt [00:22:50]:
How do you help people figure that out?
Nicole Antes [00:22:53]:
Yeah, I think there's a couple different approaches that you can take with identifying trigger foods. Because with trigger foods, food sensitivities, it can be a tricky topic to kind of pinpoint what your exact trigger foods are. Especially with autoimmunity, there's so many factors that can be contributing why you're having symptoms. It could even be down, like you mentioned with the gut microbiome, like if digestion isn't happening properly, maybe you're reacting to more foods, but you're not actually having sensitivities to them. It's just because things are off balance. So I think starting with building up their diet, addressing all of those kind of main areas that you talked about are important first. And then we can dive into playing around with do we need to do some sort of elimination diet like cutting out gluten, dairy, nightshades and then introducing them back in one after another and paying attention to symptoms. I think the key there if you're going to do some sort of elimination diet is waiting until you feel stable.
Nicole Antes [00:23:47]:
If somebody's not in remission, and they're having a ton of autoimmune symptoms. It can be really hard when they remove those foods if they don't feel significant improvement when we bring them back, and we don't know if they're contributing to more symptoms or not. So that's not always the case where you need to wait for that remission period. But we want to get them to a point where they're feeling a little bit more stable so that we can have a little bit more sensitivity to what foods they're having symptoms with.
Erin Holt [00:24:12]:
Yeah, because if you pull out food, like, if there's just so much inflammation and you're not sure what's contributing to it yet, food might be a huge component. It usually is. But you just rip out all of these foods. It's hard to discern if you're in a really inflamed, reactive state. It's hard to discern, like, what's contributing to what. And is this really making me feel better? And then people kind of get in a loop of, like, discouragement, where it's like, oh, my God, I'm not eating anything. I'm not feeling better. Like, it can be very, very discouraging.
Erin Holt [00:24:41]:
Do you ever utilize food sensitivity testing? Where do you stand on that?
Nicole Antes [00:24:45]:
Yeah, I have used food sensitivity testing in practice. It's not my favorite because I do think there's a lot of factors that go into, like, the different testing options that you can pick. And sometimes I do think, I think it depends on the person and kind of really getting to know your client and who you're working with. If there's someone who feels like they can take that on, then maybe that's something that we try out. But the caveat with food sensitivity testing is it's not super specific or sensitive. So sometimes people can come back with a really long list of foods that they're sensitive to, and then they can get really overwhelmed and kind of fall into that fear spiral that you're talking about. So I think it really comes down to if you're going to do the testing really knowing the client that you're working with, and if they're willing to kind of take on that. That burden.
Erin Holt [00:25:30]:
Yeah, it's something that we leverage pretty sparsely in our practice, as you well know. I will say the exception to that is the Wheat Zoomer. So that's a test that we run pretty often. And so that will help somebody determine is the consumption of wheat and gluten contributing to inflammation and immune dysregulation. It also looks at other factors, including degrees of intestinal permeability. We can see lps, which is very inflammatory, and so it shows us more than just that. But I think that is, I really like to see that in autoimmune patients because we know that gluten can be such a trigger for autoimmunity that I think it's a, it's a really important test. And then of course, we have Eat to Achieve.
Erin Holt [00:26:15]:
So that is a program that's available in the collective and it is designed as an elimination style diet, if you want to use it as such. Really the intention of Eat to Achieve is to help you clear out processed foods, get more creative in the kitchen, start to build out a more varietal diet, like high variety diet, a diet with a lot of variety. I lost my words there. And all of that can help to build your microbiome, build the immune system. But part of that, there's three different levels and one of the levels can be utilized as an elimination style diet. So that's something you can go through in the Collective and get some guidance, support on it as well. What else should people be thinking about from a food perspective?
Nicole Antes [00:27:00]:
Yeah, absolutely. So I think blood sugar is also a really big component with a lot of things, but especially with autoimmunity. Because if we're thinking about inflammation, blood sugar is, can contribute to inflammation. If we're not eating balanced meals, if we're not eating properly to support our blood sugar and our body, we're just contributing to the inflammation from that blood sugar perspective. So I think if you're going to be working on an anti inflammatory whole foods diet, you're probably going to be tackling the blood sugar because you're going to be working on eating whole foods that are balanced and kind of creating your meals. But that's also something to keep in mind that blood sugar definitely can play into some of autoimmune symptoms.
Erin Holt [00:27:40]:
Yeah.
Erin Holt [00:27:40]:
And you could be eating whole foods diet, but under eating and you have blood sugar issues, you could be eating a whole foods diet, but only eating two meals a day. You could be eating a whole foods diet that's maybe not protein rich enough to sustain blood sugar. So I think cleaning up your diet is huge. And then also knowing how to eat, like when to eat, how to build a plate, all of that is also a critical component for that. What other tools are in the toolkit from a food perspective?
Nicole Antes [00:28:13]:
I think the other thing that is such a huge category, I guess I don't know if it's counted as a food, but I'm going to count it as one, is hydration. So water not technically a food, I guess it's a beverage. But super, super important. Hydration definitely needs to be something that's taken care of in our body even without autoimmunity, but especially with autoimmunity because if we're having a lot of stress and inflammation in our body, our body could be depleted of minerals a lot more quickly just because we're using them a lot more readily. So I think hydration very important and then using some sort of minerals to support hydration and support mineral balance in your body as well.
Erin Holt [00:28:48]:
So do you like a mineral supplement or are you encouraging people to get more minerals through their food or both?
Nicole Antes [00:28:55]:
I think a combination of both. Like especially you can do a lot of mineral rich foods. I think in general these days, even if you're getting organic foods, a lot of our foods are naturally depleted in minerals. So doing some supplementation can be really beneficial. Or even just using like high quality mineral rich salts as well can be a good way to get them into your diet too.
Erin Holt [00:31:26]:
Let's transition into lifestyle because I think one of the things that we really excel at and I really pride ourselves on is especially in the functional medicine space and where it's headed is we're not just running thousands of dollars worth of labs and then giving people thousands of dollars worth of supplements and then like waving them goodbye and saying good luck. We're really helping them to build a new lifestyle around health, one that prioritizes health. And I think this is just such a missing component and it's so overlooked. There is no easy button for health. But I do feel that health can be easy. And this is coming from somebody who is in the trenches with autoimmunity and not feeling well. And now health isn't something I really have to think about or feel like I put a lot of effort in. It's just how I live my life.
Erin Holt [00:32:17]:
And so that's available to everybody here too. It might be a little bit of work in the beginning, like anything different. Any change, anything new can feel uncomfortable at first because it's new. But once we help you build those reps and really establish a healthy lifestyle, it just becomes like a set it and forget it. So what are some of the critical components to a healthy lifestyle?
Nicole Antes [00:32:39]:
Yeah, I think there's four things that come to mind when I think about lifestyle. Sleep, movement, our nervous system. And then a big near and dear topic to my heart is toxin exposure. I know you kind of mentioned a little bit about that, but I think those four areas are like key to working on how we control our autoimmune symptoms from a lifestyle perspective.
Erin Holt [00:33:00]:
Okay, so let's tuck into each one a little bit more in case somebody doesn't listen to the podcast and doesn't know what you're talking about. Why is sleep so important? I actually have heard somebody say that there's no supplement that can support your immune system like sleep can. So we know that getting a good night's sleep is really going to set our immune system up for success.
Nicole Antes [00:33:27]:
Yeah, absolutely. I think people need to be at least getting like seven to nine hours of sleep a night. You're exactly right. Like, nothing. We could throw so many different supplements, things at you, but if you are not sleeping at night, your body is not getting that time to rest, repair, build up your immune system. So that's like one of the key, key things. If nothing, get some good sleep at night.
Erin Holt [00:33:51]:
What if somebody struggles with sleep? Do you have any tools to add to their toolkit for that? Do you have any favorites?
Nicole Antes [00:33:57]:
Yeah, absolutely. I think you can never go wrong with doing magnesium. I know we just talked a little bit about, like, getting more minerals into your diet, but adding in magnesium can be a really beneficial thing for sleep as well. And then I also think that nervous system regulation piece that we talked about as well really does tie into sleep. Like, what is your evening routine like, what's your morning routine like? Like, how are you helping your body wind down to be able to rest and sleep?
Erin Holt [00:34:23]:
Absolutely. What about movement? What would you say to somebody who perhaps has a lot of pain? Because we know we need to be moving, but if somebody's in a lot of pain because of their autoimmune process, how would you advise somebody to get more movement?
Nicole Antes [00:34:35]:
Yeah, that's a great point. And I think that's another thing to think about with your autoimmune healing toolkit is it's going to change based on where you're at, what your symptoms are like. But I think movement is a piece where there's a fine line, there's a balance. We want to be moving to keep our body healthy, to support our joint pain or pain throughout our body. But you also don't want to push it so far that you're contributing to some of your symptoms from that perspective as well. So I think it's personalized, like whatever movement feels good to you, whether that be going for a walk, doing some yoga, doing a rebounder, or maybe you want to push it a little bit and do some weight resistance training. I think it just comes down to where you're at in your journey and what your symptoms are like and figuring out what feels realistic to you with moving your body.
Erin Holt [00:35:21]:
Yeah. And something I can say is that where I find people being the most successful is, like you said, some degree of strength training, because muscle mass can really influence the immune system pretty dramatically. Walking is medicine. I just, I'm like, if you do anything, go for a walk outside. If you can do it, you know, we're in winter now, suit up and go for a nice walk. Walking. And because walking you can do, you can moderate your, your pace, you can moderate your time. You're not on anybody else's time clock, you're not in a group fitness class, for example, where you can't leave.
Erin Holt [00:36:03]:
So I even on my, like, even on days where I don't, I haven't felt great, I could always go for a walk. So strength training, walking, and then I'm a huge fan of yoga, even if it is more restorative yoga, because that's really gonna build in that nervous system regulation, that nervous system support, and that's gonna help to just calm down. If the nervous system is revved up, then the immune system is revved up. So the endocrine system and the immune system, they talk to each other. And so if any part of you is revved up or in fight or flight mode, that's talking directly into the immune system. So it's really, really important we know that stress is if not the biggest trigger, definitely top three biggest triggers for autoimmune flare ups. So we just need to find ways to calm down our system and tell ourselves that, hey, we're not in danger here, we're safe and send signals to our body to calm down. And then I know that one of your jump offs, one of your favorite things to talk about is supporting detoxification.
Erin Holt [00:37:05]:
So talk to us a little bit about that.
Nicole Antes [00:37:08]:
Yeah, absolutely. So I think you mentioned a little bit earlier on that what we're exposed to in our environment absolutely can play into our autoimmune symptoms or just symptoms in general. Because our liver plays a big role in our body, it does have to handle and detoxify all of the things that we're exposed to. Whether it be like foods that we're eating, chemicals are in our environment, things like that all affect our body and put burden on our body to be able to tolerate things. So if we're thinking about autoimmunity and different things that we can kind of pull out of our kind of scope of things that we're doing daily. Anything that we can do to reduce that burden is going to be beneficial on our symptoms. And our toxins is one thing that we don't have control over everything in our environment, but we do have control over a decent amount of things. So being able to kind of go in there, clean up what you're exposed to, can help support the immune system, support your body, and just give your body more capacity to tolerate things.
Erin Holt [00:38:06]:
I mean, the word tolerate is so huge when it comes to autoimmunity, because that's essentially what autoimmunity is. It's loss of tolerance. It's loss of tolerance to self, so we no longer tolerate ourselves. There's a metaphor in there.
Erin Holt [00:38:19]:
There definitely is, but it's loss of self tolerance. And because we are unable to differentiate our own, our own cells, our own body, essentially friend from foe, so the immune system starts to attack our own cells and tissues, which is obviously not great, but it's very connected to other types of loss of tolerance, loss of oral tolerance, where we lose the ability to tolerate the foods that we're eating, like Nicole said, but then also loss of chemical tolerance. And so this is talking about environmental toxicants. So if we are perpetually exposed to these things, it can start to essentially grind down on the immune system. And then the immune system is like, confused, tripped up. It doesn't know what's going on, and we lose tolerance. And so all of these things need to be factored into somebody's autoimmune healing journey. And detoxification is a huge piece.
Erin Holt [00:39:14]:
We haven't talked about any supplements at this point. So we're a half an hour into this discussion of building out an autoimmune healing toolbox, and we have not said one thing about supplements. So just make note of that because this is where everybody wants to start. But we got to start with the basics, the foundations, and then we can layer on supplementation. And that might be part of somebody's healing toolkit. It's certainly a part of mine. Of course, when we're working one on one with people, we're making very individualized recommendations based on their health history, based on what they've tried in the past, based on what their current labs show us.
Erin Holt [00:39:49]:
There's a lot that goes into our recommendations for supplements. But can you give some examples of things that you're commonly recommending to your clients?
Nicole Antes [00:40:00]:
Yeah, absolutely. And I think one thing I want to say, too, before I even get into the specifics of what you just said that stuck out to me is what we're doing when we're recommending supplements for people is we're making, like, intentional, targeted recommendations. We're not just throwing a bunch of supplements in and seeing what sticks and what works. And I think when you're thinking about your autoimmune healing tool kit, you want the supplements that you have in there to be intentional and targeted and have a specific purpose. So I'm happy to talk through some, some examples of supplements that I like to recommend. I think there's kind of two groups of supplements that I think people do really well with in their autoimmune healing toolkit. Obviously it depends on what they're really working on targeting, but generally anti inflammatory nutrients and immune supportive nutrients tend to be very helpful in aiding the different lifestyle and diet changes that people are working on.
Erin Holt [00:40:51]:
Yeah. Why don't you get into some specifics of those?
Nicole Antes [00:40:54]:
Yeah, definitely. So in terms of anti inflammatory nutrients, I don't think turmeric or curcumin is anything new to anybody, but is a wonderful anti inflammatory supplement that people can bring in. It can be beneficial for so many different things, but especially with more of those like RA, joint pain type symptoms can be really beneficial. And along with that as well, I also really like boswellia. I feel like that's a less common supplement that people are recommended. But you can actually get curcumin and boswellia like combo supplements and those can also be really beneficial for targeting that kind of body inflammation, aches and pains that people can feel.
Erin Holt [00:41:31]:
Do you have a specific dose that you'd like to see for turmeric?
Nicole Antes [00:41:36]:
I think it really depends on the person. Not a specific dose comes to mind, but curious if you have one.
Erin Holt [00:41:43]:
No. Like no. That's why I was asking you. I like go high is what I is typically and I kind of base it off of the individual too. Like have you noticed a difference in your symptoms? Do you want to go a little bit higher? Sometimes we'll use liquid turmeric and so we can get the dose higher without having to swallow a bunch of pills. But when I'm in, I don't really get flare ups anymore. So that's a little bit exaggerated to say. But when I'm just feeling like stiffer or a little achy, so my joints are still one of my like quote unquote weak links.
Erin Holt [00:42:18]:
That's how my body talks to me and it's like, hey, yo, like pay attention. So I will do, I will take like kind of high dose turmeric. Like I'll take two caps in the morning and two caps at night. I don't know the milligram off the top of my head, but I will get it before the end of this episode. So we can circle back around to that. And then the boswellia I feel like, is such an unsung hero. And you're so right. It's so under discussed.
Erin Holt [00:42:46]:
But for inflammation, joint pain, it can be a really, really effective tool. What else do you like to use for anti inflammatories?
Nicole Antes [00:42:55]:
Yeah, I also really love Omega 3s fish oil. I know that's also a really common supplement that people are familiar with, but it is such a good thing to have in your arsenal. Obviously you can focus on omega 3s through food as well, and that is where I would start with people. But sometimes we can use a little bit of extra inflammation support by bringing in an Omega 3 supplement as well. And with that one, I do like to go high with the dose because I do think that people need a significant amount to, to help with inflammation.
Erin Holt [00:43:24]:
Like what would be the dose that you would use in. In like a classic case of autoimmunity?
Nicole Antes [00:43:30]:
Probably like 2 to 3 grams a day at least. Yeah.
Erin Holt [00:43:34]:
Do you like supplement or not supplements, like encapsulated or like liquid better?
Nicole Antes [00:43:41]:
I think both are good options. I think in terms of like what clients prefer, I think they prefer the capsules, which is totally fine. I get it. But you can't go wrong either way.
Erin Holt [00:43:50]:
I know, I'm laughing because fish oil, like taking the liquid, it can be pretty gnarly even. I mean, they like do some pretty great things with it. So it doesn't taste like fish oil, but it's like, you know, you know what you're consuming. Okay. And then you were talking about other just overall immune support. So what are your favorite go tos for that?
Nicole Antes [00:44:12]:
Yeah, absolutely. I think everyone is familiar with vitamin C as well. Such a good immune supportive supplement. Obviously again, you can get that through food, but sometimes, especially this is where the toolkit becomes flexible. Like if people are in a season where they know that they're prone to getting more sick or having more symptoms, maybe we bring in the additional vitamin C to kind of reinforce their immune system during that time. I think also vitamin D is amazing. So many people, majority of people, I would say, are probably deficient in vitamin D. And especially with autoimmune conditions, supporting vitamin D can be such a great way to support the immune system as well.
Erin Holt [00:44:49]:
And vitamin D also supports T regulatory cells. So it just has a more of a stabilizing effect on the immune system. Certain supplements and herbs that we might use can kind of ratchet up aspects of the immune system, which is not necessarily a bad thing. But when, when I'm not, when we're working with somebody with autoimmunity with an active flare, I really like to do more immune supportive T regulatory supportive supplements. And so vitamin D is one of those. Same deal with omega 3s turmeric, the ones that we've mentioned so far. What other immune supports do you lean on?
Nicole Antes [00:45:29]:
Yeah, I also love zinc. So again, going back to any minerals that can support your body, zinc is one of those that is great for immune function. So that's a great supplement to bring in. I also really love quercetin. This can be really helpful for like regulating histamine response. So if a lot of people have histamine reactions, it can also be really supportive for that as well. So think like around seasonal allergy time. That can be a good time to bring it in.
Nicole Antes [00:45:54]:
And then I also absolutely love NAC, not only because it's great for like liver support and liver health, which helps with that detox, but also such a great way to support your immune system as well.
Erin Holt [00:46:04]:
Yeah, and glutathione as well. So NAC is a precursor to glutathione and they are similar and glutathione is another Treg support. So nothing that we just discussed would aggravate or exacerbate the autoimmune process for the most part. I did find. This is what I thought. I thought it was 500 milligrams, but I didn't want to, I didn't want to lie to folks. So I just, I fact checked myself. So I will do two caps, two 500 milligram caps.
Erin Holt [00:46:33]:
So 1,000 milligrams or a gram in the morning and then also at night. So that's pretty high dose for turmeric supplement. But when I'm trying to squash inflammation, that wouldn't be like a maintenance dose. I wouldn't say. But if you're trying to actively kind of bring down inflammation, you would want to go, you could go that high. Obviously this is not medical advice. Nothing on the podcast is medical advice. Talk with your health practitioners.
Erin Holt [00:46:55]:
All that jazz. This is what I do. I'm sharing my strategies here. But that's something that I actually learned from one of my mentors where incorporating turmeric into your diet is awesome, right? Definitely. It's variety, it's we're getting the spice, we're getting some of the anti inflammatory benefit, we're getting the antioxidants, all that good stuff. But if you're in an active flare, sprinkling some turmeric into your soup is probably not going to have the anti inflammatory effect that you would hope for. And so that's why I'm kind of really leaning into that high dose strategy for a short period of time to bring down acute inflammation. And then we know that so much of our immune system lives in the gut.
Erin Holt [00:47:41]:
And of course, we have talked about that a lot here on the show. Do you have any favorite gut supporting or gut healing agents that you would work into somebody's toolkit?
Nicole Antes [00:47:54]:
Yeah, definitely. I think going back to diet first, obviously start with your diet. Like you just said, get the variety, get your plant diversity, feed the microbiome. But there's also a time where we can bring in some different agents to kind of support gut healing, accelerate that kind of repair of the gut lining. One of my favorite ones is L Glutamine. And you can take this in a couple of different forms like powder or capsule, but it can be such a good way to kind of heal and seal and just calm inflammation throughout the gut.
Erin Holt [00:48:25]:
Yup. And then other ones. And you'll often find this in like a gut healing supplement or like a powder is L Glutamine and marshmallow root. Slippery elm. I know you use those as well and I would put those in the category of just soothing and calming. Like if there's aggravation on the inside, it just helps to kind of calm all of that down. Well, Nicole, thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing some of your pro tips for autoimmunity. If anybody would like to work with Nicole, if you're on your autoimmune healing journey, we will link up our application to work with us in the show notes.
Erin Holt [00:49:06]:
Don't forget that we have the Collective opening January 7th and we can help you out there too. Thank you, Nicole, for being on the show.
Nicole Antes [00:49:13]:
Yeah, thank you for having me. I'm so happy that I get to be here.
Erin Holt [00:49:17]:
It's going to be a great year. 2025. Alright!
Erin Holt [00:49:25]:
Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Funk'tional nutrition Podcast. If you got something from today's show, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, share with a friend, and keep coming back for more.
Erin Holt [00:49:36]:
Take care of you.