STOP FEARING FOOD: Debunking Nutrition Myths, Fasting Trends & the Truth About Gut Health

Anna Lena Middeldorf, Nutritionist at The Balance, shares her deeply personal story of suddenly losing hearing in one ear overnight—a profound experience that reshaped her understanding of health beyond the surface. As a nutritionist, she explains why it’s time to stop fearing food and reveals the powerful connection between the microbiome and mental health, emphasizing that we truly are what we absorb. Anna Lena also discusses why fasting during certain menstrual phases can do more harm than good, and why mental and physical health must be addressed together for lasting well-being.

🔗 Watch now for a conversation that will change the way you see the powerful connection between nutrition, mental health, and overall well-being.

About Anna:
Anna-Lena Middeldorf is an academically trained Rehabilitation Pedagogue (BA) specializing in psychosocial rehabilitation and holds a Master’s degree in Human Nutrition (MHSc). She offers individualized, evidence-based nutrition and lifestyle counseling that considers each person’s lifestyle, preferences, and possibilities. Anna works holistically to gently reshape diet and habits in a way that fits seamlessly into everyday life for lasting change. Her goal is to provide emotional support and professional guidance to help maintain long-term physical and mental health.
 
00:00 – Nutrition Myths & Mindful Eating
00:46 – Meet Anna: From Rehab to Nutrition Counselling
01:42 – Fertility Clinic Work & Motivations for Change
05:06 – A Health Crisis That Changed Everything
09:19 – How Illness Built Empathy & Insight
10:33 – Busting Common Nutrition Myths
11:45 – The Role of Social Media in Food Confusion
12:56 – Why One-Size-Fits-All Nutrition Doesn’t Work
14:20 – Intermittent Fasting: What You Should Know
16:48 – Coffee on an Empty Stomach & Breakfast Timing
20:07 – Glucose Spikes, Mood, & Energy
23:59 – Gut Health: Microbiome & Mental Wellness
25:59 – Nutrition Foundations Over Food Trends
28:11 – Mindful Eating & Digestion
33:09 – Cultural Eating Orders & Glucose Regulation
35:27 – Glucose, Insulin, & Mental Health Links
41:15 – Gender Differences in Nutrition
44:57 – Nutrition for Aging & Menopause
48:47 – Stress, Cortisol & Libido
51:20 – Essential Nutrients: Vitamin D, Omega-3s & More
58:04 – Nutrition & Mental Health in Detox
01:08:11 – Emotional Roots of Disordered Eating
01:11:29 – Gut-Brain Healing & Empowered Clients
01:18:00 – Daily Practices: Planning, Gratitude & Mindfulness
 
For further mental health information and support, visit The Balance RehabClinic website: https://balancerehabclinic.com/
 
Follow Anna Lena: 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-lena-middeldorf/

Follow Abdullah Boulad: 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/abdullahboulad/
https://www.instagram.com/abdullahboulad/
 
You can order Abdullah’s book, ‘Living A Life In Balance’, here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0BC9S5TCF
 
Follow The Balance RehabClinic:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/thebalancerehabclinic/ https://www.instagram.com/thebalancerehabclinic/

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Transcript

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Anna Middledorf 00:00:00  So we are really focusing a lot on what to eat, you know, and when to eat. But we don't focus on how we are eating. And this is a big problem. Intermittent fasting is like, oh, this makes you younger and it stops aging. But it also depends. So most of the studies on intermittent fasting have been done on men. So for women in a fertile age, intermittent fasting like more than 12 14 hours, actually produces stress hormones in the body. I think it's a nice way to see symptoms, not as, enemies, right, that we should be destroying, but rather like sacred messengers that want to tell us something about our health.

Abdullah Boulad 00:00:46  Welcome to the Living Alive and Balance podcast. My name is Abdullah Bullard. I'm the founder and CEO of the Balanced Rehab Clinic. My guest today is Anna Dorf, an expert in nutrition counseling at the balance. In this episode, we dive into the myth behind nutrition how what we eat affects our mental health, the relationship between the nervous system and food, and the gut brain connection.

Abdullah Boulad 00:01:14  We also spoke about disordered eating habits and how we can heal our relationship with food and find the joy in eating again. We will find out about how nutrition affects the genders differently. The benefits of mindful eating and rituals and her top five favorite supplements I hope you will enjoy. Ana. What motivated you to do what you do today?

Anna Middledorf 00:01:42  yes. Well, so about 14 years ago, I studied rehabilitation pedagogy in Germany, in the University of Dortmund. So I was always very passionate about passionate about rehabilitation and psychosocial rehabilitation and creative therapies. And I worked in Germany for about half a year with children with special needs. And then I decided to move to Mallorca and worked for more than five years in a fertility clinic, actually. So I was like the the peace between the doctor and the couples that came to Mallorca to get pregnant or single women. And I actually, I loved the job very much. It was very nice, very emotional, you know, because and I don't know if you know, but in Germany you cannot do explanation.

Anna Middledorf 00:02:27  It's forbidden. So there are many couples that come to Spain to do that. And I was always with them the entire process. And at some point, most of them always asked me like, okay, Anna, so I'm taking the medication now, I'm following the plan. I'm doing what the doctor is telling me. But is there anything else like that I can do proactively to have better odds to improve my fertility, or to also like emotionally feel better throughout the process because it's a it's very emotional process for them. And they always ask me and ask me, Anna, what can I do? What can we do? What like like proactively? I feel like I also need to do something not just like in a passive way, you know, but like actively. And I, I didn't have the answers and I was asked the medical doctors like, okay, what can they do? And the answers were always very random. Like, yeah, of course. I mean, they need to do sports or, sleep enough.

Anna Middledorf 00:03:21  Not drinking alcohol or not smoking or eating healthy foods, you know, like very general. And I was like, okay, that's not enough. You know, I want to help them better. I want to, you know, know how to answer these questions. And then I myself, I decided to look into some books and do some research. And I found out very quickly that, like, nutrition has so much to do with our mental health, with our fertility, overall health. And I was so surprised that the doctors wouldn't mention that in every consultation. Like, okay, so like before you go through all of this, you should check. I don't know your vitamin D levels, or you should check inflammation in the body or anything like that, you know, and then, well, I started helping these clients by giving some tips. You know, I asked the doctors and they say, yeah, you do you. And if you want to, you know, help them a little bit more, do so.

Anna Middledorf 00:04:12  And I saw that that had a huge impact. And then in 2019, in October, actually, when I was still working there and doing all of that, I was with my sister and I was driving in my car. We went, I don't know if you know the tunnel that goes to Sawyer. It's like a three minute, very narrow tunnel. Yes. And I was driving in the car and suddenly I got super dizzy and I lost hearing on my right ear, and I needed to get I needed to somehow stop the car. I don't know how I managed that. I stopped, like the car in the middle and somebody took over and I went to the doctor right away to the emergency department, and they couldn't find anything, you know. And I just lost hearing on my right ear. It was just gone. You know, they did. Yes. They did MRIs and CT scans and so on, but they couldn't find any reason for it. I wasn't, like too stressed in that moment of my life, I would say.

Anna Middledorf 00:05:06  So there was not really like a reason for it. And, that was really traumatic and difficult for me because I needed to stop doing what I was doing, because I think for several months I couldn't gain back balance. So I was a dancer, so I couldn't even just, you know, dance. I was super weak on my feet because our balance system is also in our ear. Right? So. And I couldn't hear. I couldn't understand people. I still can't on my right ear. I just regained 30%. But then I was like in that situation where I thought, okay, I needed to stop working. And I was like, okay, like I'm a rehabilitation pedagogue, so how can I now rehabilitate myself? What would I do with my clients? You know, if they're at risk of exclusion, you know, problems with integration back into work or society. And then I thought that the best thing that I can do is instead of thinking about how I have to adapt myself to my work environment, is how I can adapt my work environment to my needs and to me, and to what I'm good at and what's like not working so well anymore.

Anna Middledorf 00:06:09  And then I, also, you know, I still had that nutrition thing there in the back of my mind. And then I just thought, okay, I will take a break. I will pause here, I will take some time to recover. And I just decided to make masters, master studies here in, in Palma, in Spanish, in nutrition. And then I, started, you know, like, working from home and studying for a while, just trying to recover, trying to get back my balance, you know, trying to gain back confidence. Also to get into my car and to be with people without being having panic attacks about getting dizzy or whatever, that could trigger me, you know? And, first of all, I focused on because I was in that topic so much. First of all, I focused on fertility, nutrition and on nutrition for female health, like for PCOS and cycle thinking, and for endometriosis and for, perimenopause, menopause and, PMS, all these types of things I was really passionate about.

Anna Middledorf 00:07:08  But very soon I started my own consultation, like one on one settings, which worked like like we're here now, which worked really well for me, you know, because it was not loud, it was calming. And then I also had more, more men in my consultation because they just came to me. They, you know, they also have their health issues. They felt comfortable with me. And I saw that many people have certain mental health, imbalances in common. And one thing is stress. we have a lot of stress, all of us anxiety, depression. So these are things that are really on the uprise and in everything that's nutrition related. They always play a role, I would say. Yeah. So this is how I this is how I got motivated to get into nutrition.

Abdullah Boulad 00:07:56  thank you so much for sharing. I mean, sorry to hear that. Also that this happened to you and I it's strange to me to hear that. That it happened suddenly and without like, stressful life, without like a real, real impact.

Abdullah Boulad 00:08:12  And and medicine hasn't come up with any idea of why it happened. I understand.

Anna Middledorf 00:08:19  Exactly. And this is like I don't know the percentage exactly, but I think 70% of sudden hearing loss is idiopathic and they actually never find out why it's happened.

Abdullah Boulad 00:08:30  but it came back a little bit.

Anna Middledorf 00:08:32  I recovered a little bit. So I needed to take cortical. It's, you know, the standard medicine and also into my ear with needles, cortical sessions and also, yeah, the nerve damage healing throughout time. But it's just 30%. But it's better than nothing.

Abdullah Boulad 00:08:48  Yes. Yeah. I mean, now you talk about that in a, in a, in a way where you have distance to, to that situation, but at that time must be quite, quite traumatic. And, and, and life changing. completely. how is this what happened to you? Affecting you? wanting to work with with clients and improve their health situation?

Anna Middledorf 00:09:19  I think it helped me a lot to be empathetic with all certain types of diseases that are not visible to the eye.

Anna Middledorf 00:09:27  Yes. You know, because it's easier to have empathy or sympathy with diseases that are very visible, like like is missing or somebody has like, you know, visible problems. But there are many mental health issues that you cannot see. Like, you talk to me, you never know. You know. And the same happens with anxiety, with depression, or with suicidal thoughts, you know, and everything that's happening inside the body because people can still be functional, but it doesn't mean that they don't suffer. Yes. You know, so I think this is something where I'm very passionate to help.

Abdullah Boulad 00:10:04  So you find your way and motivation to help people through nutrition. Yes. you have been doing this now for many years. You understand nutrition back and forward and what and how do you see the world or globally like, nutrition being developing or the misconception around and the myth around nutrition?

Anna Middledorf 00:10:33  Myths about nutrition. I think what I try to get away from mainly also in the consultations is the fear around food.

Anna Middledorf 00:10:44  So when it comes about myths and society and everything that we see in the news and in Instagram, because everybody want to have likes and views, it's oftentimes so negative. Abdullah I don't know if you see that like you cannot have soy milk because of the phytoestrogens. You cannot have, oat milk because it will spike your blood glucose, sugar. You cannot have cow milk because it will inflate your body. You cannot have the the other whatever type of you know, it's all about those do. don't do this. Don't do that. This is dangerous. And the. And the fish and the heavy metals and the selenium. And so it's really, you know, it got out of hand, I feel, and I think it's very important to focus back on how we can nurture ourselves. Like what is good, you know, like what. How can we not only, stop eating certain things or stop drinking certain things or restrict things, but how can we nurture our bodies and focus focusing on that I think can be very life shifting.

Abdullah Boulad 00:11:45  Yes, I feel also like since the since social media has been born, there is a lot of, information out there, around food, around carbs, around fats, around whatever, you name it. and also a lot of about different types of diets. And this diet is good and the other is good. And and then also often you hear like, meat is bad, then you hear the keto diet is, is good, which implements meat. Then others say vegan. And then you have like movies on Netflix about how superstars sport athletes only eat vegan. So what is your opinion on that? Because I feel many people cannot think about, what is the right direction here anymore.

Anna Middledorf 00:12:41  I think that we all need to be a little bit more humble when it comes to science, any type of science. You know, we think we know it all and we think we have all the answers. But then five or 10 or 20 years later, we see that that wasn't right. So that wasn't right.

Anna Middledorf 00:12:56  So we I think, shouldn't just, take everything that we hear as a fact. You know, and first of all, don't listen so much to social media or the news, but go to a health professional that, you know, a real health professional, or even better, a group of health professionals from different types of specialties who can guide you in your very individual case. You know, because everything depends on chronic illnesses. It depends on your age. It depends on your gender. It depends on your mental health. Like if you're very stressed person or not, you know, it depends on your on your origin, on your culture, like your genetic predisposition to certain foods. You know, like Asians, they maybe have a different gut microbiome to metabolize soy products than we have. And Eskimos like when it comes to omega threes and or if you're pregnant or not pregnant or, you know, breastfeeding. So you cannot just take one information and think that this is like a solid like the real thing for everybody.

Abdullah Boulad 00:14:00  Yeah. Not one size fits all when it comes to nutrition. Certainly. Exactly. And to be to be also more, more conscious about your own body and try things out. What works for you exactly? Most most likely depends on what's your origin, where you come from and predisposition.

Anna Middledorf 00:14:20  Just trying. Same with intermittent fasting for example. Abdullah, you know this is everywhere, right? Intermittent fasting is like, oh, this makes you younger and it stops cell aging and then it and it destroys cancer cells and so on, you know. But it also depends. So most of the studies on intermittent fasting have been done on men and postmenopausal women. So there are almost no studies on intermittent fasting done on women in a fertile age. So for women in a fertile age, especially when they're in luteal phase, that's before the menstruation or on their period, intermittent fasting, like more than 12 14 hours, actually produces stress hormones in the body. You know, it's all the opposite. So it's not good at all.

Anna Middledorf 00:15:05  You know, and depending on your metabolism, some people need to have frequent meals. Some others don't. You know, but it's like you say, trying and testing, but it's not the same for everyone.

Abdullah Boulad 00:15:16  Yeah. I think also about fasting. What happens actually. And what is a healthy, fasting.

Anna Middledorf 00:15:25  A healthy fasting, let's say the standard healthy fasting is the fasting that we naturally do when we sleep, right? Which is, let's say, around eight hours and maybe three hours before that, like having dinner three hours before we go to sleep. That's, I think, 11 hours, and then waking up waiting one hour. And then maybe you can break your fasting. So that would be like the natural, normal fasting because we usually don't eat when we're asleep. Right? Yes. so 12 hours I think is something that most of us can handle and it's even recommended. And then you have a longer fasting, which you can either do before bed or in the morning, right, like in the morning, instead of fasting until, until 7 or 8, maybe until 11, if you would like.

Anna Middledorf 00:16:17  But what many people do that do prolonged fasting, they break their fasting like the breakfast with coffee. So this is not real fasting. So this is actually bad for the body. Like people that say, oh no, I'm not having anything until 12:00. Oh but do you have coffee? Oh, yes. 1 or 2. That's not good. So that's. That's really not good. That's the only thing I would say. Not good. And that's not that's not fasting.

Abdullah Boulad 00:16:43  Why it's not good. Why is drinking coffee in the morning on an empty stomach not good for us.

Anna Middledorf 00:16:48  For several reasons, Abdullah. Because, the first thing is that we wake up dehydrated naturally. So first we would need to hydrate our body, and coffee naturally dehydrates the body. It doesn't it doesn't hydrate. And it's acid drink. So it doesn't really prepare your gastrointestinal tract for digestion. You know, it just it just dries your body more. Right. And it's something that activates us so it doesn't make us feel tired.

Anna Middledorf 00:17:13  It makes us feel activated, which is a little bit for some people, more for some people, less like a stress response in the body, like fight or flight. Right. So we are alert. So if then we do not give sugar to the body. The body has a process where it takes the sugar from the glycogen stores from the liver. And in order to, you know, being able to react because we suppose that we are like maybe attacked, you know, or in danger because when fight or flight. So the body needs quick sugar and it takes sugar from, from the liver, right. When there's no other sugar. But then right after that, if you don't use that, if you're not, like, really running away from from somebody, if you're just sitting in your office or at home having the coffee, you can then have a blood sugar crash afterwards, you know, so it spikes and it crashes and you're dehydrated, you know? And then it's the moment where you release stress hormones, even more so cortisol, because you're hypoglycemic and you're just looking for a quick fix for like sugary foods or, or whatever it is, maybe you get jittery, you get nervous, and you make bad decisions.

Anna Middledorf 00:18:19  for breakfast.

Abdullah Boulad 00:18:20  Okay. Understand? Yeah. So you want me to eat one hour after I wake up? But what if I'm not hungry at that time? Because sometimes people. Per day. They skip breakfast, and then they, They jump into a lunch somewhere at 1 or 2:00. what's your thought about that?

Anna Middledorf 00:18:41  so first of all, I think it's important to find out for yourself why you're not hungry. Is it that you're not hungry because you're already in that fight or flight mode? Because you're preoccupied about what you're going to do in that day? Like you're suppressing hunger because you're already waking up and being working on adrenaline and thinking about that. You need to get the kids to school, or you have your checklist, your to do list, and you're not in your physical body and you're suppressing that hunger feelings. And then they come back later and then you're getting like really irritable and eat whatever you can find. Or is it that really like from a calm state, from a place of balance you feel into your body that your body doesn't have any need yet for any energy input? That would be something else, you know.

Anna Middledorf 00:19:29  But I am a big fan of, preventive eating. So if you are very busy, if you have a very busy day and you know that not having breakfast at that moment would mean that you cannot eat anything until four hours later, I would even eat something, even if it's very small, just to make sure that you don't fall into that hypoglycemia later. You know what I mean?

Abdullah Boulad 00:19:52  Where you then do bad decisions?

Anna Middledorf 00:19:54  Yes, exactly.

Abdullah Boulad 00:19:56  We all, we all have experiences. Moments where you just, Yeah. Don't go shopping on an empty stomach. Yes.

Anna Middledorf 00:20:03  For example.

Speaker 3 00:20:05  Yes, yes.

Abdullah Boulad 00:20:07  yeah. Okay. So you mentioned, glucose and, insulin levels in the body. why is glucose or spikes bad and why why does glucose create these spikes in the first place? And not not, being used for a longer period than the body?

Anna Middledorf 00:20:26  So the glucose to have stable blood glucose levels in our body gives us into this like feel good range. You know, having a stable not too high, not too low blood glucose gives like peace and calm to the body.

Anna Middledorf 00:20:41  Your body knows that everything is going well. You have enough sugar, but not too much. So things are going smoothly. but if you, for example, you are having a breakfast just with a muffin or some processed carbohydrates or a glass of orange juice, even if oranges are healthy, but they're full of sugar and you won't add any proteins or any fiber or any healthy fats. So then this is something that goes into your bloodstream, really easily. You know, it's very accessible for yourself. So the sugar goes into your blood very quickly. So you get like this spike. And whenever, like you have this spike, like this sugar tsunami in your body and then your pancreas, the better cells in your pancreas, they create insulin, which is a key hormone to open the cells and to put the sugar where it needs to go, you know. And the faster these two processes work, the bigger the risk for a big drop afterwards. Right. And when you have the drop, your body is in fight or flight.

Anna Middledorf 00:21:39  Your adrenal glands, they produce cortisol because your brain is like the main organ that needs sugar. And if there's no sugar, your brain gets really anxious, like, okay, we're going to, probably die if we don't find sugar within the next hours, you know, a little bit exaggerated. And then eventually, again, you make bad choices, you know, for eating. but if you start your day, if you break your fasting whenever it is that you break your fasting, if it's at 8 or 10 or 11 or 12 and you choose like a good mixture of proteins and fiber and healthy fats. So the proteins, cannot be converted into sugar so easily. So that's more difficult for your body. So it cannot spike, right. The same with the healthy fats and the fiber is something that takes the glucose like a little bit, you know, and helps for it to not go into your bloodstream so quickly. Okay. So when you have the combination of these things, you will have instead of this curve, you will have more of a curve like that okay.

Anna Middledorf 00:22:40  So you will have a little bit of energy, you know. And the energy will be released into your body like over a period of sometime minutes or hours. And then the drop also will be smoother. And you don't get into this really dangerous fight or flight modes of hyper or hypoglycemia. And if you manage that throughout the day, it can reduce anxiety, it can reduce stress, it can. It gives you more energy because you don't waste energy on this. You know, on this on this stress hormones and the other way around if it happens a lot. So you have a lot of spikes and drops and spikes and drops throughout months or years, then eventually you get insulin resistance, you can get diabetes and all of these other metabolic diseases that come with it.

Abdullah Boulad 00:23:26  Yes. Thank you. We'll get into that as well. my understanding of, of, if we focus too much on glucose, intake is that glucose is digested very quickly and the upper parts of the digestive system, so it doesn't end up in the lower parts.

Abdullah Boulad 00:23:47  can you explain a little bit, what is missing then? And, and the food chain on the lower parts of, of of the gut.

Anna Middledorf 00:23:59  Well, the lower part of the gut actually is where our microbiome is. Right. So this is our microbiome. We have different types of, of living organisms in there like bacteria and viruses and fungus and so on. And it's very important to have a good balance of the good ones and the bad ones. So the bad ones are important, but we don't want them to overgrow. Right. And whenever, for example, we have a foods that are mainly glucose or mainly sugar or let's say the processed sugars, right. Because they are also like healthy sugars, you know, from, from fruits for example, which are not detrimental for our gut. then we can have an overgrowth of the bad bacteria in the gut, especially if we don't have enough fiber or just a lot of a lot of glucose, a lot of processed foods in our diet. So then we can have an overgrowth of bad bacteria, and the good bacteria might actually starve.

Anna Middledorf 00:24:52  We don't have enough of them. And then we can have gut imbalances, dysbiosis, inflammation in the gut. And when we are inflamed in our gut, we have, you know, the the gut, brain axis, the vagus nerve. Then automatically we have silent inflammation in our whole system and it affects our mental health also.

Abdullah Boulad 00:25:12  So what can someone do to. Besides, like the obvious, eat less sugar and and and like possibly also carbs which are transformed into glucose and the body. What what type of food would be would be good for our. So it passes the upper levels of the digestive system. So, so our microbiome, can profit from it. and we know that, and we will talk about it also that the microbiome affects also our, our brain, our mind, our mental health, situation. But what type of food would be helpful to to pass through to the microbiome?

Anna Middledorf 00:25:59  Also to not get too much into details because many times we get lost, like in the details, you know, like I have, I have clients coming to my office and they say, okay, but what type of cinnamon is better, this one or that one? Or I have heard that if I have ginger then this will heal my God.

Anna Middledorf 00:26:16  Okay, but what about the basics? What about, like, your alcohol intake? Let's start there, you know. And what about your stress management, even, which modulates our gut microbiome so we can have overgrowth of bacteria.

Speaker 3 00:26:28  From stress actually.

Anna Middledorf 00:26:30  Also I think we should always start with the basics and just try to have natural foods. You know, going back to just having natural foods, whatever natural food you eat, which is eventually, if you can afford it ecologically, you know, ecological food that is low in chemicals, it can be from animals, it can be from plants, something that preferably you prefer to prepare at your home or you have it prepared but in a natural way, without food additives, without conservancy and things like that. But just getting back to the basics of having enough protein, enough healthy protein, you know, if you want to have animal proteins from grass fed beef, that's okay. You know, it depends on your genetics as well. You know, having legumes, for example, in your diet, which we have totally forgotten about, and some cultures not, you have more legumes like hummus and lentil dal.

Anna Middledorf 00:27:26  But here in the Mediterranean diets, people don't eat legumes anymore almost, you know, and things like that. And having healthy different protein sources, healthy fats in your diet, natural foods. And I think this is where we should again focus on, you know, the basics going back to natural, going back to maybe local, going back to ecological. And I think with this we can also do so much good to our gut.

Abdullah Boulad 00:27:51  What I find interesting is that, the order, what we eat and the speed of what we eat is, affecting also like the glucose level or how how the body digests something. can you explain us why this is happening in the body?

Anna Middledorf 00:28:11  Yes, yes. You know that there's a saying that goes. We are what we eat, but we are mostly also. We are what we absorb. And absorption has a lot to do with how we eat, right? So we are really focusing a lot on what to eat, you know, and when to eat. But we don't focus on how we are eating.

Anna Middledorf 00:28:32  And this is a big problem. I don't know if you know that for yourself. Also, I don't know, fast eating or distracted eating.

Abdullah Boulad 00:28:39  Depends on the day and the time of the day.

Anna Middledorf 00:28:42  Yeah, this is a huge problem for me included for most of us that have a busy day, you know, and, I actually I have a nice story about that. So I was, two months ago, I was at my sister's place, and she says when she cooks, she loves cooking. I'm not such a great chef. But my sister, for example, she is. And she just prepared too much a lattice for us. And she presented it to me in this, like, beautiful cup with some flowers sprinkled on top, and we were just sitting there and having a chat like we're having now. And I was looking at it and I said, oh, this is so like beautiful. You know, it's not just having a quick drink, but it's like beautifully presented with the flowers.

Anna Middledorf 00:29:27  And she told me, yes. And not the other week I went to a market and there were nuns and there were selling things, different items. And a nun approached me and she said, look, I have these bags of, these dried flowers, which I handpicked myself. And I dried them. And she said that she uses them on top of every food that she eats, doesn't matter what she eats, but she just prepares the food, and she sprinkles the flowers on top of the food of the beverage, imagining, like internally, how these flowers are like a catalyst to better absorb all the beneficial properties about what she's going to eat. It's like a meditation practice, right? And you can. And I think that's so beautiful because it can be anything. It can be these flowers, but it can be any practice that can help you to get into the moment before you start eating or drinking, you know, to connect really with the food and with the situation and to activate your senses.

Anna Middledorf 00:30:25  We are so disconnected from our senses, so oftentimes we don't even prepare our own foods anymore. Or we just put it in the microwave and then it's immediately warm and we start eating. We're just doing something else, and we go into digestion. Right. But in order to digest well, you need to go from fight and flight to rest and digest. Right? So we need to regulate our nervous system first. So it's really helpful to just take some time like in some religions. I mean you do you do some prayers at the table, which I think is beautiful because it helps you to just pause for a moment to connect with the others, doing some gratitude exercise, sitting there looking at the food, appreciating. And this automatically regulates your nervous system gets into like a parasympathetic state and it helps you to produce saliva. You know, when you activate your senses, so you look at it, maybe you hear it, you smell it, you taste it, or you feel the food. If you eat with your hands, it helps you to activate the senses.

Anna Middledorf 00:31:25  And also it starts with the digestion in the mouth. You know, where digestion starts actually with your senses, right? And then in your mouth with the saliva production, which helps to metabolize the food before it gets into your gut. And if you do all of these things, whatever you eat, it's more likely for you to have a good digestion so you can have like the most healthy food you can have, like this salad for lunch or, you know, like whatever you consider healthy. But if you just eat without chewing and you're distracted, or maybe you're watching the news or politics, you know, at the moment everything that's going on in the world and you're distracted, you're not really smelling, or maybe you're even, you know, you're you're inhaling air while you're eating. You know, you're not going to absorb anything. It's not going to get into your small intestine to get properly absorbed, even if it's like really high, nutrient dense and so on. You know what I mean? So slowing down when we're eating and everybody, you know, you can have a meditation that you like, whatever you want can be loud when it can be quiet.

Anna Middledorf 00:32:26  It can be gratitude practice. It can be it can you can sing a song. It doesn't really matter, at least if it just brings you into the moment. And it's also like your mindset, you know, whatever you think you create. So if you think that, oh my God, like you're having, you're eating a cookie like, oh, this is going to be really bad for me and I'm going to gain weight from this cookie, or I'm sure I will have stomach cramps afterwards or, you know, or I will have whatever it is, you know, acid reflux.

Abdullah Boulad 00:32:55  Feeling around.

Anna Middledorf 00:32:56  It. Yes, it's most likely to happen. But if you're sitting like, like, oh my God, this food is going to be good for me, it's going to be nurture me. I'm going to feel great. I will digest this really well. So this makes a lot, you know.

Abdullah Boulad 00:33:09  What I also find fascinating is like we culturally are used to start, let's say with, with, with the, with the starter, very often something green and salad.

Abdullah Boulad 00:33:25  And then we go into a main course where proteins are, are implemented legends and so on. And then at the end, like the desserts, like the carbs, like the sugar. And I, I recently read also an article about that. The body creates differently glucose if we eat in this order. Yes. the body produces less glucose, spikes than if we just do it in other ways. So the order of eating that's true is, is that that was, that fascinated fascinated me.

Anna Middledorf 00:34:02  That's true because of the fiber, especially in the greens. They help to reduce or slow down the absorption of the sugar. It doesn't mean that it's, that this is why you can have always dessert, you know, after having a salad, you know, like, oh, I'm having a salad. Then I can have a dessert. That's not how it works.

Abdullah Boulad 00:34:19  A little bit. And allow me a little bit.

Speaker 4 00:34:21  Yes.

Anna Middledorf 00:34:22  But it's very cultural. For example, in Germany, people usually don't have dessert immediately after they would have maybe, like a coffee break with, some cakes or so, like 3 or 4 hours late, like 4 or 5 in the afternoon.

Anna Middledorf 00:34:35  You know, it's very cultural for me.

Abdullah Boulad 00:34:38  For example, when I, when I eat, whatever I eat, I cannot eat sweet and then salty. Let's say it's, it's against my, how I grew up. And what I'm used to is I'm just asking myself, is there a reason for that, or is there any. Is there does it make any sense? If you eat for salty and.

Anna Middledorf 00:34:59  Sweet, it might be just emotional. It can be habits. Also depends on the Honestly, yes. Also depends on the type of sweet.

Abdullah Boulad 00:35:06  And I would blame my mother then what she gave me for food.

Anna Middledorf 00:35:10  It depends.

Speaker 5 00:35:11  Very much. Yeah.

Abdullah Boulad 00:35:13  So has glucose and insulin something to do with our brain and, dopamine levels or other chemicals? Neurotransmitters? yes.

Anna Middledorf 00:35:27  Yes, a lot, a lot, actually a lot. well, glucose I think mainly has to do with I would associate glucose mainly with, with stress and anxiety, as I explained earlier, you know, because when we don't have, glucose in our brain, it can it can cause us to, like, look for sugary foods especially, you know, but it also when we have a bad insulin sensitivity and we are in a, in a chronic or we're in a high in a chronic hypoglycemic state.

Anna Middledorf 00:36:01  So if our brain is starving. This can also really mess with our mental health in terms of like depression, for example, depression, or even we had clients who had even led due to various, reasons though, to suicidal thoughts. You know, because when our brain learns to work on chronically low glucose, it just cannot function properly. You know, we we survive because we adapt. Humans are very good at adapting and surviving. But when you are running on very low glucose for a long time, your brain just shuts down certain parts, you know, and you cannot think clearly. So we had once a client, it was a very interesting for me to see a very interesting experience also for myself, because I was I was wrong with what I thought was right for him. So we had a client. He was an athlete, like a really high performer on a physical level and very young, and he suffered from depression or anxiety and suicidal thoughts. Also some PTSD and childhood trauma. But, you know, very, very many facets to it.

Anna Middledorf 00:37:15  And, I did the the food plan, the meal plan for him. And he ate very healthy for him. It was very important to eat healthy. And he had like four, 4500 calories every day. And I thought that we were doing nothing wrong. You know, I thought like, oh, my God, he's he's eating a lot. He's like, on the safe side. I thought, you know, we're doing a good job. He's having antioxidants, the proteins, the fats. But then we did some like professional metabolic testing with him, with the cardiologist and so on. And they found out that his actual daily needs are around 6000 calories. You know, but he has been living and adapting to to less calories throughout the last years, but being very detrimental for for his brain, you know, and I wouldn't have expected or suspected that he needs so many calories, you know. But he did. And then we started upping and his body didn't want to, you know, intuitively, his body didn't feel like eating more.

Anna Middledorf 00:38:15  But when he started, like from a place of love and, you know, but pushing a little bit his boundaries and trying to eat more, he started and combining with the other therapies, of course, he started feeling better and his brain started to function better, you know, so we always have to not always look for like, what? What we have to restrict, or maybe it's too much from this or that, but sometimes it's not enough. on a calorie level, on the level of macro nutrients, maybe not enough proteins or fats or fiber or on the micronutrient level also, so that maybe there are micronutrients missing that lead to like some worsening depression or anxiety Society or chronic fatigue and things like that.

Abdullah Boulad 00:39:00  Yeah, it's another great example where, just one size doesn't fit all. And for this particular, person client, diversion from from the standard was needed to find his optimal balance. Yes. you mentioned you mentioned something about glucose. the brain needs a glucose to to operate. But there is also the possibility, particularly on a keto diet, that the brain uses ketones through the fat to, to, to to get its, needed energy source.

Abdullah Boulad 00:39:37  Yes. how do you feel about that? And what's the difference for you?

Anna Middledorf 00:39:41  Yes. I mean, that the brain needs glucose doesn't mean that we need to eat carbohydrates, you know? But glucose is just the end product that gets to the brain for for brain energy. So to say, so the brain can get, this glucose from from different sources, from the proteins and the fats and on different pathways in the body. But it depends very much on your metabolism. It depends also on your stress level, maybe. So if you're a person that is already suffering from mental health issues or severe mental health issues, I wouldn't add these more complicated pathways for the body as an additional stress factor to the body. You know, if you're in a very balanced state, emotionally, psychologically, and you want to push your body a little bit, trying to lose weight or lose fat, gain muscle with the ketogenic diet. This is why most people do it, you know? then. Yes. Then I think it's a good option, and your brain can have all of the fuel that it needs, you know? But if you're in a very, I don't know if you're a high performer, you're having a very stressful job or a stressful life situation Tuition or you need to perform on a really high level.

Anna Middledorf 00:40:58  For me personally, that wouldn't be a moment to make the body struggle more. Through doing this, you know what I mean?

Abdullah Boulad 00:41:07  Yes, yes. Do small changes rather than, radical changes, like completely restrict certain type of food?

Anna Middledorf 00:41:15  Exactly. But this because this can lead them to the cravings, right? Or to the yo yo effect. Like, you know, many people that do keto, they're doing fine for one month or 2 or 3, and they lose weight and they say that they have more energy, most have more energy. But the problem is what happens after, you know, then usually the cravings come back and you want to have, you know, glucose. And then once you give this glucose, like the like the carbohydrate glucose to the body, it, you know, really it wants more.

Abdullah Boulad 00:41:45  Yes. It's yeah. Interesting topic I'm very passionate about about how the body reacts to, to different types of nutrition. But I'm a man. You're. You're a woman. Are there differences also in gender? Huge differences also while we age.

Abdullah Boulad 00:42:02  How does this change?

Anna Middledorf 00:42:04  Yes. Keto is something that works better for men than for women. Also, depending on the menstrual cycle, for example, you.

Abdullah Boulad 00:42:12  Know, this is why men eat more meat. Probably.

Speaker 4 00:42:15  Or, well.

Anna Middledorf 00:42:17  Maybe there's also like a social component to it. You know, like the associations or for being vegan and a man or eating meat and a man, I don't know. That's one component, but no. I would say that mainly it's, when you're a woman, you have a menstrual cycle. Your body is wired to, like, protect, possible, baby pregnancy. Right. It doesn't matter if you want to become pregnant or not, you know, but your subconscious doesn't know that. That you don't want to have a baby, you know, but you're wired to to eventually have one. You know, so whenever like you're in follicular phase, for example, that's the moment before the ovulation. I don't know if you know the female cycle. Abdullah. More or less.

Abdullah Boulad 00:43:06  Yes, of course I'm familiar. I have three children. So I went minimum three times through this.

Anna Middledorf 00:43:12  So I think it's very important for every man like to to know a little bit. At least you know the outlines of why women, you know, where the mood changes and why they're one way and the other. Like one day they're like this, one day like that, like that. That's very hormonal. So in the follicular phase, which is before the ovulation, women, for example, they can it can be easier for them to do, for example, the ketogenic diet, you know, to have less carbohydrates, maybe they have higher energy and they don't need so much like sugary foods or sweet foods, or even can have less calories overall in their in their diet. And it might be something that also gives them more strength, you know, makes them feel better, more energetic in ovulatory and throughout ovulation also. But then when the luteal phase comes, it's after ovulation where they can potentially be pregnant, you know, and the endometrial lining grows and so on.

Anna Middledorf 00:44:04  So it's extra tissue that needs blood. women, the need of calories for women is about 350 more or less kilocalories higher than in the first half of the cycle. So they need more calories and they crave more sugars and more foods. So then the ketogenic diet would not be the best idea. It could cause more irritability. You know, it could cause mood swings. It could, you know, and then it really like these cravings and that they have also before the menstruation. It's it's a real thing, you know. And I think in that moment it would not be a good moment to say, okay, I'm just doing I continue with my keto diet now, you know.

Abdullah Boulad 00:44:43  And this differentiates It's also while we age or like if we are young or if we get older. What? What changes?

Anna Middledorf 00:44:57  Well, first of all, the metabolic rate becomes less in most of people. Muscle mass usually decreases. You know, unless you're really aware and you're doing a lot of, you know, workouts and muscle training, which is important for all of us.

Anna Middledorf 00:45:11  But not everybody does it. And also genetically, muscle mass becomes less and the metabolic rate becomes lower. So you automatically can eat less. Right. So there are people that are very in tune with their body and that feel that the body now needs less quick energy sources. Right. Less carbohydrates. And then they naturally adapt. If we don't do that, we can have more obesity or overweight when we get older because we don't adapt to that natural change. Like we continue eating like when we were 20 or 30 and we had maybe 5 or 10 kilos more of muscle mass, right? And we don't adapt. But the normal thing is to adapt. And the body usually needs less quick energy sources when we get older. Yeah.

Abdullah Boulad 00:45:58  Yes. This is why in average, every ten years, like certain kilos, men or women gain on weight in average, even if they just sustain their, calorie intake.

Anna Middledorf 00:46:12  Yeah. And has also to do with, with the sex hormones like testosterone and men drops naturally.

Anna Middledorf 00:46:17  So when testosterone drops, you also need less. Less glucose. Theoretically. You know, but then we need to try to adjust to these changes in our bodies. Same with perimenopause or menopause.

Abdullah Boulad 00:46:29  Yes. Yes. What happens through menopause? Can you explain that to me? And is there can nutrition help through this phase?

Anna Middledorf 00:46:40  Yeah. What happens in menopause is that, the female and male sex hormones. Both. They start disappearing, right. So it can start with 40 or 45 every individual. And first of all, we have less progesterone, which is our relaxation feel good hormone. And then we can have less estrogens. And also the testosterone also in women also drops. Right. And when the hormones start to drop, we are like in a permanent state of let's call it like when we are on the period when we have the menstruation, this is the same drop, right? But then it's forever.

Abdullah Boulad 00:47:19  Never come.

Anna Middledorf 00:47:20  Back. It's it's never coming back. It's permanent. And this has a huge impact on our metabolism.

Anna Middledorf 00:47:26  So the metabolism gets slower. There's more risk for having, abdominal obesity, more visceral fat. The fat goes from the legs more to the abdominal area, which is like the more the risky fat. Right? The the unhealthy fat for cardiovascular diseases. Yeah. And when it comes to nutrition, if food can help with it, not so much. Food can not help so much with with the signs of perimenopause.

Abdullah Boulad 00:47:54  except the healthy lifestyle in general. Healthy eating. Exactly.

Anna Middledorf 00:47:58  But there are no foods. I mean, nowadays we have the hormone replacement therapy, which is another topic. I'm a big fan for men and for women, you know. which I think is very important to do. It's my opinion that, opinion that hormonal replacement therapy is it's it's life saving. It gives so much quality life quality back for women and for men that God go through and pass. but nutrition can stabilize things like, like these problems with heat. You know, that you can experience or being really, like, high temperature at night, not being able to sleep, but not more than that.

Abdullah Boulad 00:48:37  What about libido? Nutrition. What can nutrition support libido and man and and and, women.

Anna Middledorf 00:48:47  libido. Nutrition. Yeah. Libido. It's it's very I think first of all, libido is like a, like a life force. You know, like the sex drive is like a life force. It's something that activates the body and it wants when it comes to food. I know you want to hear if there are, like, some super foods.

Abdullah Boulad 00:49:08  Possibly if I go to a Lebanese restaurant, they tell me this is increasing your libido.

Speaker 6 00:49:13  You should eat this seafood.

Anna Middledorf 00:49:14  Because of these strawberries.

Abdullah Boulad 00:49:17  Is there a misconception, myth or are there concrete real things?

Anna Middledorf 00:49:22  They can increase libido, but it's not like you eat these things and they have a.

Speaker 6 00:49:26  Great then suddenly.

Anna Middledorf 00:49:27  No. I think first of all, it's very important to stress management, especially in women like regulated nervous system. I think the best libido booster. Then of course, the hormones, you know, testosterone and women actually gives us our libido.

Anna Middledorf 00:49:43  So whenever we ovulate while we still have the cycle, it's when we have a testosterone spike. As a woman, it's still way lower than in men, but this helps us to have better libido. And in order to have an in men, also testosterone. So in order to boost testosterone, for example, physical activity can be more important than nutrition. You know, like working on our muscle mass, working on our endurance and everything that helps with the blood flow generally in the body. Everything that gives us get gets into an active state. For example, with food, what's not good for libido, overeating, for example, the processed foods, or overeating being overly full. You know, the feeling like you're on the maybe on the on the sofa sitting with your cup and you have been like indulging and eating too much. There's not going to happen so much. You know, the libido goes down, so everything that activates the body also can activate libido if you're in the right headspace, of course.

Anna Middledorf 00:50:39  You know.

Abdullah Boulad 00:50:40  You mentioned now a couple times stress how stress is affecting nutrition, our bad decisions around nutrition and and the body. so my understanding is when we are in a stress mode, we produce cortisol into the body and can nutrition support the, let's say specifically or non specifically to the cortisol production, but also on the nervous system level. what type of food can we can we, manage to take in, which supports, let's say, the calming or balancing out our stressful lives?

Anna Middledorf 00:51:20  so there are some key nutrients that I like to work with, but mainly in supplements. And I like to work with supplements because, first of all, our, our meals, they are not so nutrient dense as they were before. So the soils, you know, the floors, everything gets poorer. You know, the the the transport times are getting longer. You know, the food is a long time in the supermarket and our needs are getting higher. Stress depletes nutrients. You know, while we age.

Anna Middledorf 00:51:50  We need more nutrients. If we are very stressful or lives, or if we are high performers or physically very active, we need more nutrients. And I think, one nutrient that we, I think all of us know already and which is very important to regulate also stress and anxiety and depression is vitamin D. I guess you've heard about vitamin D. Of course it's a hormone, right? It's, it comes from the sun. We can produce it through the sun, but we are almost all deficient in vitamin D, and it's a very key to.

Abdullah Boulad 00:52:23  More. Yes. I mean, living now in Mallorca, we have we have quite a lot of sun. But unless you don't lie every day naked, outside in the garden and the sun, you you most likely don't. Don't get enough.

Speaker 6 00:52:37  That's true.

Anna Middledorf 00:52:38  That's true. And we also use sunscreen, you know, and if you just have like ten, the number ten s p f m protection, you don't produce any vitamin anymore. And so vitamin D is a very important anti-inflammatory hormone.

Anna Middledorf 00:52:53  So it reduces inflammation in the body. And vitamin D is a natural serotonin booster. So you can really have less serotonin in the body if you have poor or very bad vitamin D levels. well, vitamin D is important also for your bones, for your immune function. you have vitamin D receptors almost in every organ of the body. This is what they are finding out now in science. So vitamin D is needed everywhere, also in your brain. But yes, it's a it's a mood booster and it's an anti-inflammatory. So this is why having very good vitamin D levels can support, anxiety, depression, burnout, chronic fatigue and and all types of other diseases like diabetes, autoimmune diseases, Alzheimer's. Like lots, lots of things.

Abdullah Boulad 00:53:42  So what effect do these supplements have on your body and why are they specifically your favorites?

Anna Middledorf 00:53:51  you see, Abdullah, I think that nutrients are the building blocks for all of our cells so that they can work properly, that we can create energy to have a balance in our body.

Anna Middledorf 00:54:01  Right. So we need vitamins, we need minerals. We need the healthy fats and the vitamin D. specifically, as I told you, it's an anti-inflammatory, hormone. It's a hormone, actually. So we are all having more and more inflammation, our body because of lifestyle, because of chemicals, because of the way that we eat and other stress factors. And the B vitamins, which are the the stress vitamins, they are super important also when it comes to alcoholism, for example. So they get depleted really quickly, especially B1 when we, drink alcohol on a regular level or when we have like a high toxic load in our body in general because of any type of chemical or toxin. And the B6 is, for example, very important for carbohydrate metabolism and for fat metabolism, and it gives us energy. B9 is important for our DNA. So women that want to get pregnant use that a lot. The folic acid and B12 stabilizes our our nervous system for example. So it's very important to have a stable nervous like stable nerves, like strong nerves, you know, and you can get them through diet like whole grains, for example, or eggs and things like that, but often it's not enough because, if we try not to overeat, for example, you know, we would need to try to have really like nutrient dense foods, which is not always possible.

Anna Middledorf 00:55:30  Right? Because even the whole grains that we're having, they're not having so many B vitamins anymore than they had before. So supplementing can make sense, but it always has to be individualized and always have to check the patient, the patient, family history and the anamnesis and so on. And the other thing is the Omega three. So I love omega three. So we're not having enough anymore.

Speaker 6 00:55:52  Yes.

Anna Middledorf 00:55:52  Omega threes are also very anti-inflammatory. Super important for our brain health, for brain function. They they help to prevent. There many studies that show that they help to prevent like memory loss and Alzheimer's and dementia and degenerative, neuro diseases, neuronal diseases. So also really, really important fatty acids. And we have a lot of imbalances in our body. We usually have more omega six in the diet than omega three. So supplementing that can make sense, especially if you're not having fatty fish like 3 or 4 times a week, or chia seeds or walnuts or flax seeds, which are really high in omega three.

Anna Middledorf 00:56:31  Yes. Okay. And also very important for any inflammatory disease. Also autoimmune diseases. Psoriasis. Hashimoto or or like other autoimmune diseases that they are. Right.

Abdullah Boulad 00:56:46  Can any of these supplements you are suggesting be too much and, can it be negative?

Anna Middledorf 00:56:53  yes and no. So the one that our fat soluble, like vitamin D and vitamin A, for example, you have to be more careful with. But it's it's quite hard to have an overdose with those. So vitamin D you will need to take really a lot of vitamin D to get into a toxic range. So this is why it's so important to do and test and do and test. So you take it and you test it and you take it and you test it. You just don't take it from a drugstore and you take it yourself because your friend or your father or your, your sort in Instagram takes, I don't know how many units and then you do the same. No. Everybody has a different need. It depends on your disease.

Anna Middledorf 00:57:31  A disease it it depends on your on your weight. Very much on your age and on your stress levels. Right. So it's very important to always check in the blood and with the symptoms and then decide how much to take. But the more at risk for overdosing are the fat soluble ones. But the ones that are water soluble like the bees, it's very hard to get toxic levels because your body just eliminates them if you take too much of these.

Abdullah Boulad 00:57:59  You mentioned also tryptophan. Yes. What effect has it on?

Anna Middledorf 00:58:04  Yes, tryptophan is a precursor. It's an amino acid. It's a precursor for serotonin. So serotonin is our happy hormone. So what we oftentimes do in our type of medicine is that we go directly. Some doctors more, some doctors less depending on the severity of the case. But we go like for the antidepressant but maybe which is has got to do with the serotonin directly. But maybe if there is a case of not that severe depression, something that can be handled like with natural, properties, then you can work with tryptophan, which is the precursor.

Anna Middledorf 00:58:41  So whenever you take tryptophan in a pill, also you also have tryptophan in cheese or in, in turkey or in eggs, for example, or in beef. Right. Tryptophan can help to naturally improve the happy hormones in your body together with the vitamin D.

Abdullah Boulad 00:58:57  So tryptophan is like eating happiness.

Anna Middledorf 00:59:00  Yes, it's like eating happiness. Exactly. This is why many people like naturally, maybe at night, like they feel like having some cheese or, you know, having having things like that because it can boost, actually, the serotonin.

Abdullah Boulad 00:59:13  So shall I now start also to eat more eggs?

Anna Middledorf 00:59:17  Well, eggs are like a it's a power. It's a powerhouse. The eggs I love eggs. You know eggs are they are so nutrient dense. They have so many vitamins. It's it's incredible. So whenever you can. I mean we're on Mallorca so we have really like amazing ecologic chicken and eggs here. So so eat them. They're very good for mental health. They are.

Abdullah Boulad 00:59:40  Yes. We have at home our little farm with our own chicken.

Abdullah Boulad 00:59:45  And my son breeds chicken. And he ordered specific chicken for and breed them and and we have every day our fresh eggs which I, I love and but they taste completely different than if I would buy them, in a shop. yeah. Are there also differences? Do you know that?

Anna Middledorf 01:00:08  Yeah. It's, you know, the way that they are fed, basically the foods that they are giving or colorants that are put in there so that the egg is more yellow and so on. It's just it's finally whatever they eat is what ends up in the egg. And this is what we eat. So of course what we feed those animals is super important.

Abdullah Boulad 01:00:27  Like the corn fed chicken for example. Purely corn. Purely purely carb. Right.

Anna Middledorf 01:00:35  Well you have to make sure I'm not I'm not so sure what she can actually need. I don't know if you know it exactly but it should be like natural ingredients. It should be not genetically modified if that's possible. Maybe not full of of antibiotics or pesticides or fungicides.

Abdullah Boulad 01:00:52  I mean, that's a good point. there is a lot like microplastic and, and, and heavy metals and, and other other radicals and out there, do we need to be careful on what we eat, or how much we eat? Of what?

Anna Middledorf 01:01:13  Yes. But again, I don't like to work so much with fear when it comes to food, because if we go into that topic, you know, it's it's you. You end up being afraid to eat anything like drinking water. You know, you can read everywhere that just the bottled water that we eat. One credit card worth of microplastic a week, just with the water that we drink. But then we cannot just not everybody can afford or has access to glass or bottled water, for example, you know. So this is why I think it's more important to think about how we can deal with the higher load of plastics and chemicals and toxins, like, how can we better prepare our bodies to deal with it. And this is by upping the micronutrients, like upping, you know, all the have all the healthy nutrients that we need, like to block, like the antioxidants, you know, everything that can deal with heavy metals.

Anna Middledorf 01:02:10  You know, like the seaweeds, for example. I think that's a better way, better approach, being aware about the toxins and the chemicals, Trying to avoid them not obsessing about it. And I would rather focus on how we can strengthen our immune system, how we can strengthen our entire organism through the most healthy food possible to, you know, deal with, deal with that damage, you know?

Abdullah Boulad 01:02:37  Yeah. No. That's beautiful. Just a balanced way of looking at, what could cause also, what could cause negative, negative? What could cause negatively affect on our body. What role has nutrition when it comes to mental health and addiction. And I know you work a lot with these type of clients through detox through burnout period. is there anything special to be to be careful about, how to manage your nutritional intake, food intake and and supplements.

Anna Middledorf 01:03:23  When it comes to recovery, you mean or because they're like the both ways, right? One thing can affect alcoholism. Alcoholism can affect nutrition.

Anna Middledorf 01:03:32  So they are like this both pathways right.

Abdullah Boulad 01:03:35  Yeah. Let's say through through an addiction detox process.

Anna Middledorf 01:03:40  Okay. So addiction detox process. there again maybe that's not a moment for a ketogenic diet for example. But that would be a moment to and not fasting either. This would be a moment where we would really focus on nurturing the body, you know, trying to keep the blood glucose stable, having regular meals, you know, having a lot of nutrients in that meals. And if somebody is just trying to reduce alcohol or other type of substances, having that extra sugar if it's necessary in that moment, you know, from the most healthy source possible, because your body's going to crave it, you know, because it's also it also boosts dopamine. It boosts serotonin, you know, the foods that boost the neurotransmitters that make us happy. So it's it can easily happen happen that when we go, when we lose or leave one addiction that we go and compensate with food. Right. And I think that in the beginning, when the body's going through that dramatic change, we can let it happen.

Anna Middledorf 01:04:42  You know, this is something that can happen. And if you're hungry at night, okay, then maybe we can have something more or less healthy with carbohydrates to eat until like this really like acute phase is over. And then maybe after a week or two, you know, then there comes the moment to bring in some stability, to cut the carbs, you know, to try to regulate the caloric intake and so on. But in the beginning, I'm a fan of making food. Not another stress factor, but giving enough for the body to handle the detox process. And also, of course, everything that supports the liver. Right? The the leafy greens that support the the liver, maybe taking it easy on the fats, which can make the detox a little bit heavier for the body, you know. Hydration is super important. You know, we hear it all the time, but it's still so important. We hear it all the time and we forget it all the time. Hydration is very important.

Anna Middledorf 01:05:38  We should have a lot, a lot, not too much. Hydration and hydration doesn't only mean having enough water, but having high quality water. You know, a good hydration means that we have enough minerals in our body also. You know, not just plain water. Even very too plain water can even dehydrate you. But like mineral dense, high quality water. Very important.

Abdullah Boulad 01:06:01  What about if someone would come with anxiety, depression or burnout?

Anna Middledorf 01:06:06  In that case, I would always focus on also starting. You know, I'm a big fan of starting the day with first glass of water, the hydration, high quality breakfast, you know, and also try to eat whenever you have the space and time, like when you're away from work. Maybe you have more space and time to tune into your body and also try to intuitively eat and not eat only because it's meal time, but only eat when you feel like eating when you're hungry, you know, or snacking in between. If must be, you know, and when it comes to depression or like burnout, this is where I like to focus a lot on, like what's missing? Like what nutrients like doing, like the complete, blood test to see what the body has been lacking for so long.

Anna Middledorf 01:06:54  You know what we need to give the body? This is super important for me and the the topic, the topic. Coffee. Try to not involve coffee in any of these processes if possible. So if you are additionally to, like an alcohol addiction or an addiction, you have a coffee addiction. You cannot reduce it completely. But if we can take baby steps to reduce it, at least in the afternoon or in the early morning, having some decaf or some matcha, some black tea, some green tea, even better.

Abdullah Boulad 01:07:24  There is a big topic around food, certainly, which is also affecting a lot of people around the world. and with the upcoming of social media, certainly, and I'm talking about eating or disordered eating, habits and body image. there are restrictive eating. There is, more more, binging and emotional eating. Well, what is what is your experience working with these type of, patients or clients, to help them through this? Phase of changing relationship to food.

Anna Middledorf 01:08:11  It's a big challenge.

Anna Middledorf 01:08:12  Abdullah. This is the biggest challenge. and it always depends on how long the disordered eating or eating disorder has been going on, how severe it is. You know, if it is something that has happened for a year. It's very new. You know, it happened like in a stressful time or it comes and goes or if it's something chronical that's already like part of the identity for so many years. eating disorders, they rarely have something to do with food or food aversions. It can happen. Sometimes it has to do like with physical symptoms, like like really feeling nausea because of an anatomical problem, or so you know. Same with binging or overeating because you really always have this hunger hormone in your body also happens. But mostly it's emotional. It has to do with childhood. It has to do with trauma. It has to do with belief systems. So if first of all, we have to work, or the therapists, the psychologists, psychotherapists or the body therapists need to work with that part, and then we can work on nutrition, because if we just work with nutrition education, most of these clients, they know cognitively, you know what's good, what's not so good, what has calories, what has nutrients.

Anna Middledorf 01:09:31  But it's not through knowledge that oftentimes right there there are there are exceptions where it's got to do with knowledge, but oftentimes it's it's 100% emotionally. So we have to work with that first. And mindfulness is something that I, I feel helps more than education or like you should be eating this or that's like like really trying to become friends. And if friends is not possible, at least not being food the enemy you're not having like a neutral relationship starting from there with food and in the eating moments, having a support on how to handle the situation where you have the food in front of you. I think this is a good therapeutic measure.

Abdullah Boulad 01:10:16  I also understand that you work very close with, with chefs, personal chefs and doctors to, to liaise on, on what's the ideal meal plans? because you can educate about about nutrition. You can talk. It's still, I feel a cognitive thing. And people forget during the day what what they should or shouldn't do. And, because it's a lot of information.

Abdullah Boulad 01:10:42  It's very complex topics. I'm very passionate about it. And still I catch myself again. Again and again. just repeating failures because I'm tired or I'm emotional in the moment. And then I grab to something I shouldn't eat in that moment. so in a treatment environment, like, like we do it, What I. What I love about it is that you your input with the chefs, the chef provides the the necessary meals whenever it's needed. so the time is correct. The amount is correct. and the, the variety is, is what, what needs to be done.

Anna Middledorf 01:11:29  Yes. And I think what also works very well, and I personally think it's important in something where we do good job with is, letting the clients be involved in that process. You know, also being able to make choices and feel empowered, you know, that they're not just exposed to we're preparing this because we think that this is what you should be eating. This is right for you, you know, but letting them also have something to say, like the preferences, you know, or at least if there's a person that doesn't feel like eating anything.

Anna Middledorf 01:12:00  Okay, so give me a list of some, like, comfort foods that you do feel comfortable, like eating, even if we repeat them every day, you know, but letting them be part of the process and feeling empowered, this is something that where they are part of, you know.

Abdullah Boulad 01:12:14  I believe it's very important to implement. and we know we do educational, meal plans and but there is also there is also the, the level of, negotiation when it comes to eating because, some in a therapeutic environment at least, they, they, they may not be in their own favor, making decisions, not in their own favor. So it's our job to to put the boundaries or, to have a healthy, connection around.

Anna Middledorf 01:12:55  Absolutely. And having a frame, you know, a frame of choosing. It's not it's not about choosing whether you're going to eat or not to eat. It's, for example, right? It's about choosing between A and B, you know, like I provide you with choices.

Anna Middledorf 01:13:12  what's possible. For example, for lunch, I think that you should choose between A, B or C, you know, and then the person and that range of what this person can choose. You know, it's not like I choose D. That's not possible. You know, we believe that it should be A, B or C, but you still have a choice. You know what I mean? But in a certain frame, because we know in the brains and starvation mode it doesn't. Intuitive eating doesn't always work. So intuitive eating is nice. I think it's something that we can all work on, but our intuition doesn't always tell us the truth when we are not in a balanced state at that moment. You know.

Abdullah Boulad 01:13:51  I would like to come back to one of the topics you you touched on, which is the gut. Okay. We know we have this gut brain connection when it comes to emotional, mental, healing treatment. And what can someone do to improve the the connection? Because we know and we understand that it's the older part of the brain, or of the body or of our body memory.

Abdullah Boulad 01:14:23  It's in our gut. So how can we improve this.

Anna Middledorf 01:14:28  Our gut microbiome. Yeah. several ways to improve our gut microbiome. First of all, make sure like very practical things, for example, fermented foods. It's something that can help if you're not intolerant to histamine, which in that case we need to look for other, solutions. But fermented foods help to have a better diversity of healthy gut bacteria in our gut, or like probiotic foods like fermented foods or prebiotic foods like green bananas, for example, like that. Which are the foods that the healthy bacteria feed from? Okay. Because it doesn't help anything if you, for example, you take a probiotic, right, with healthy gut bacteria. So you put them into your body, but they are not going to stay there for very long if you don't feed them constantly. So maybe you're going to feel better for a while because they're there and you're taking them. But if you starve them, they're going to disappear. So they need food and they feed from the food that you eat, right? So in order to have a healthy gut microbiome, stress management, that's important because we see that it has a direct impact on overgrowth or not having enough of the healthy bacteria, having a real a diversity of foods.

Anna Middledorf 01:15:46  For example, not always I mean, this is very not everybody has this opinion, but not always cleaning your foods because something that's, you know, like the entire fruit, there are certain types of bacteria that are also good for you. You know, if we clean too much and sanitize everything, that's also not the best. If we are afraid about, you know, the pathogens and trying to have fiber, for example, you know, like the legumes that I talked about, very good food for our gut microbiome. You know, lentils, chickpeas, beans, very healthy for gut microbiome, everything that's, that has antioxidants like red berries, for example, and spices like ginger and turmeric, things like that. Very, very healthy for our gut microbiome.

Abdullah Boulad 01:16:29  Is it is it worth it to focus on these little micro, micro things, or or from time to time to implement it? Is this than enough, or do I have to supplement? Because it's a lot of things I need to look at and I need to watch and.

Anna Middledorf 01:16:51  Well, I think, first of all, everybody has like it's his unique fingerprint when it comes to microbiome. So no, not one microbiome. It's like the other microbiome. And also the topic microbiome the studies the science is very very new. So I don't know if we've investigated 5% of all there is. But there's so much there are more things that we do not know about the microbiome than we do know. But what we do know is that gut microbiome is also modulated by, for example, medication. Right. If we are chronically using, omeprazole for example. Right. It's not good for our gut microbiome or metformin or certain types of medication modulate our gut microbiome. I think it's just most important to focus on reducing the damage. You know, like logically thinking, you know, seeing a food and thinking, does this most likely nurture me or doesn't it, you know, is this a natural food? Is this a healthy food? Is this a real food? You know, I think this is the most important question to ask.

Abdullah Boulad 01:18:00  What? What have been like the most remarkable changes you have seen in your clients using nutrition as medicine?

Anna Middledorf 01:18:11  Many things. I'm often surprised I'm all the time, every month with every client. I'm surprised how much we can improve through nutrition. I think that very remarkable changes are done when, when people, especially people that have a high workload, a lot of stress also start to organize their eating better. You know, because oftentimes eating is just something that they do like to survive because it has to be done or like it takes away too much time or they eat while they work. It's a disturbance eating when we're very stressed. But really like scheduling or thinking beforehand. I have seen a lot of improvements with with working on creating habits around food. Like people that say, oh, it's so difficult for me to make good choices when I eat in restaurants and I eat in restaurants all week because I'm in my office and I go out and I choose a restaurant. So the day before, just like you, you schedule your work all day, look at the menu, look at the restaurant, see what they offer, and decide beforehand.

Anna Middledorf 01:19:20  Don't decide when you're already there. When you're already stressed, when you're hungry, when you're having a phone call or you're with colleagues talking. Decide the day before you know that you're going to this restaurant. So look at the card and say, okay, tomorrow I'm going to have this and that. And this can really, really make things so much easier.

Abdullah Boulad 01:19:36  Just plan ahead. Take out the stress. of the session?

Anna Middledorf 01:19:40  Yes. Or plan ahead what you have in your bag if you're planning a long trip. Have something in your bag. Have some nuts and seeds or or whatever. Or protein bar. If you if you like, you know, or some energy balls or whatever you want, but have something in case of emergency. Yeah.

Abdullah Boulad 01:19:57  If you if we get in now into the closing questions, what do you do in your private life to to stay in balance.

Anna Middledorf 01:20:12  I know I've, I've said that word a lot now but I'm going to say it again anyways. I try to really practice gratitude.

Anna Middledorf 01:20:21  So the first thing when I wake up in the morning before I, I start like stressing about my to do list and everything that I have to do or that's not working well, you know? instead of taking the phone or spiraling down. Because the bad news is, I try to think about things that I'm grateful for. You know, sometimes I speak them out loud. Sometimes it's just in my head. It's nothing fancy. I don't sit on the yoga mat or so just, you know, having that moment before I start the day with myself. and for me, I have the feeling that it really sets off like a positive frequency for for the rest of the day, because once and in the beginning when I started doing that, it was quite a challenge. Because when you're in a bad place, for example, when I had that hearing loss and somebody told me, do gratitude, you know, affirmation was like, I kind of think about anything. And once you start to doing that work, you know, it's like a discipline.

Anna Middledorf 01:21:18  You suddenly you come up with so many things and it's more and more and more things that you can think about that you're grateful for, right? Sometimes we struggle, but if you like, really try to to focus on the good, more good things happen. And another thing that helps me personally to to be in balance is, also when I start the day trying to think about how I can be of service that day, you know, like Mother Teresa said, that who doesn't live to serve, doesn't serve to live. And I kind of think like that. Also like it helps me when I'm having a bad day or when I struggle, or when I have a lot of load of negativity or negative, you know, stories, from clients or people around me that bring me down. just getting the focus away from myself to the outside and just thinking of, okay, how can I be of service today? Who can I help? Like, what can I give? Rather than how do I feel and what's bad like, okay, who can I help today? In what way? And somehow for me this works very well to to figure around it, to feel balanced and to think like, okay, just shifting from the negative to the positive, like what I'm grateful for and what I can do for others.

Anna Middledorf 01:22:33  For me, this is like a miracle works perfectly.

Abdullah Boulad 01:22:37  I like that, I like it very much. So the gratitude, as well, when I think about gratitude, you do this for yourself, right? just quietly or saying it out loud. Maybe while driving a car. Yes, I, I often include the family into a gratitude practice. I just to share this quickly. it doesn't happen that often anymore, but very frequently. Every week we we sit down together as a family and have a dinner, for example, and then we talk about the day or we talk about the week. And usually if you ask your children, how was your day? Okay. You know, you get only very short answers. not much meaningful. So we started, at home, asking everyone good. What has been positive today. So everyone should list three things. And you know what? And this was amazing. this is why I like to tell this story. Everyone didn't want it just to be limited to three things.

Abdullah Boulad 01:23:47  They always wanted to tell more and they were fighting. Who can speak more about? About what was positive in in their day. so I think, I agree with you. Implementing gratitude into our daily activities. Daily life is something which raises. positivity and and, happiness. and maybe we need less tryptophan.

Speaker 7 01:24:12  Exactly.

Anna Middledorf 01:24:13  That's a natural tryptophan.

Speaker 7 01:24:15  Yes.

Abdullah Boulad 01:24:17  So, my last question to you is about, if you if you could say something right now and reach every person in the world. what would you tell them? What would you suggest them in their life of?

Speaker 7 01:24:35  I think.

Anna Middledorf 01:24:35  Based on my personal experience and what I see with clients is that I think it's a nice way to see a see symptoms not as enemies, right. That we should be destroying, but rather like sacred messengers that want to tell us something about our health. You know, I think that we live in a society where we're really focused on how we can avoid or or eliminate a symptom, like the sooner the better. You know, rather than asking ourselves, what is this trying to tell me? What is this trying to teach me? What can I learn from this? How can I, you know, integrate this and and do something with that rather than thinking about pushing it away? Like making friendship.

Anna Middledorf 01:25:22  Like getting friends. Friendship with your body that your body is trying to protect you. You know, your body's not your enemy. That's, you know, trying to upset you. You know your body's trying to help you. It's trying to tell you something and trying to listen and tune in and and shifting the focus, like, to this positive side of what symptoms are like messengers that want to somehow protect us and tell us something about how we can improve or pay attention. Not just improving, but just paying attention to something.

Abdullah Boulad 01:25:54  That's that's that's great. So listening, being mindful about, about yourself and what happens around you. Yes. Thank you so much. It was a really pleasure today to, to to speak to you about such a big topic, nutrition, which affects every human in the world. And I hope, I'm pretty sure, you were able today to, to, to reach, many people, to give them like the, the necessary, element or information piece of information to dive deeper and improve their life or improve their lives through nutrition.

Abdullah Boulad 01:26:37  Thank you so much, Anna.

Anna Middledorf 01:26:38  Thank you so much. Abdullah was a pleasure to be here.

Speaker 7 01:26:41  Thank you.