13 - Chiropractic Care, Chronic Pain & Gut Health: A Holistic Conversation with Dr. Daniel McClelland

We're welcoming our very first guest to the Nourished Living Podcast – Dr. Daniel McClelland! Daniel is a chiropractor, movement specialist, and nutrition advocate with a deep passion for helping people feel and perform at their best.

Together, we dive into:

• Daniel’s path from nutrition to chiropractic care
• What most people misunderstand about chiropractors
• His holistic approach to treating pain and promoting health
• The biopsychosocial model of pain – and why it matters
• How gut health and chronic pain are deeply connected
• Why nutrition is the "unicorn" of health
• Practical advice for desk workers to improve posture and movement

Whether you're curious about chiropractic, struggling with chronic pain, or simply want to better support your body, this episode is packed with insight and practical tips.

About Dr. Daniel McClelland:
Dr. Daniel holds a Bachelor's in Nutrition Science from Cal Poly and a Doctorate from Life West Chiropractic College. He’s worked in private practice and with Google’s Health & Wellness Centers. Daniel blends movement, recovery, and smart nutrition into a powerful, holistic approach. When he’s not working with patients, he’s chasing his twin toddlers, golfing, and staying active in the Bay Area.

Connect with Dr. Daniel McClelland: 

- Instagram: @dm_chiropractic

- Website

- Book An Appointment

Subscribe to the Nourished Living Podcast and leave a review if you loved this episode!

Connect with Courtney:

- Instagram: @nourished_living_

- Work with Courtney: Nourished Living

Transcript

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Welcome to the Nourished Living Podcast, where I'll be diving deep into nutrition, holistic wellness, and practical tips to help you live your healthiest, most vibrant life. I am Courtney Podany, a nutritional therapist, certified personal trainer, type one diabetic and mom. And I'm here to help you take charge of your health with ease and confidence. Together we'll explore how to nourish your body, mind, and soul in a way that feels good and sustainable. So grab your favorite beverage. Take a deep breath, and let's get into the episode. I. Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Nourished Living Podcast. We have such a treat for you today because I am joined by our very first guest. Today's guest is Dr. Daniel McClelland, a chiropractor movement specialist. And nutrition advocate who's all about helping people perform and feel their best. With a Bachelor's in Nutrition Science from Cal Poly and a doctorate from Life West Chiropractic College, Daniel Blends movement, recovery and smart nutrition into a powerful, holistic approach. He spent over a decade working in private practice and at Google's Health and Wellness Centers, empowering people to live stronger, healthier lives when he is not helping patients. He's busy chasing his twin toddlers, hitting the golf course, and staying active in the Bay Area community. So welcome, Dr. Daniel. I am so excited to have you as our very first guest, and I've got a fellow twin parent in the house. So much fun. Yes. Thank you so much for having me. I've really been enjoying this podcast and, I'm so excited to be part of it. So thank you. Yeah. It's, such a pleasure to have you. So let's just kick things off right away. I would love for you to share more about you and your journey and what led you to become a chiropractor. Well, I suppose the journey isn't, extremely straightforward, but I always knew that I wanted to work in the, health and fitness field. And so when I was going to, college, my undergraduate degree was in nutrition science. And I was about halfway through that program when I was doing a dietetics internship, at the local hospital in San Luis Obispo. And I realized very quickly that. This wasn't necessarily the path for me. I was just having a tough time, with the flow of what that environment was going to be like. So in a panic, I changed my major. From a concentration of dietetics into pre-med, just knowing it was gonna open up some doors later on. And as I graduated, which this was 2011, we were still sort of at the tail end of the financial crisis. And so I was looking for whoever and wherever I could get a job. Welcome to the real world kid. And so I moved back to the Bay Area and I'm looking for jobs. And the first job I happened to get was a assistant to a chiropractor, a local, guy up in Concord. Incredible guy, incredible chiropractor. It was my first experience in the field. I didn't know what chiropractic was, I didn't know what the goals were. And my job was fairly straightforward. I'd bring the patients back, I'd set them up on some kind of. Therapy, whether that was, electric stem or doing some ultrasound or doing a little bit of laser or whatever it may have been, and kind of managing the flow of the patients through the office. And I just remember being really interested that this guy who had been in business for probably about 20 years or so, he had such a successful practice that most of his returning patients were people he'd been seeing for years and years and years. People who were just elect to come in because it helped them. Feel their best, move their best, be at their best. And it was such an enjoyable environment for him.'cause for most of the day, he's just connecting with old friends, right? Someone who's seen once a month, once a quarter, whatever it may be. I remember thinking, you know, I think I'd like a job like that where I get to chat all day with people and build relationships and help them achieve their health goals. And so that's kind of when I made the decision to go back to school to become a chiropractor. And I've not regretted it, a day since. That's amazing. So you actually left your undergraduate without the plan to move on to chiropractic and just kind of stumbled upon it? Yeah, exactly. Hey, sometimes when one door closes, another one opens. I was open to other modalities. I was interested in physical therapy, maybe occupational therapy, but chiropractic sort of found me first. Nice. It sounds like it was meant to be. I'd like to think so. So actually after college I went a similar route almost. I worked for physical therapy clinics and did the same thing like electrical stimulation, ultrasound, ran them through their exercise program as well. So it sounds quite similar. Yeah, and it's a fun environment to be a part of, for sure. So for those who are listening who have not partaken in any chiropractic care before, what would you say is one of the biggest misconceptions? Hmm. Well, there's so many because I think the part of chiropractic that tends to draw a lot of eyeballs are the things that are presented to you,, in mediums like social media or just in the media in general, which is this idea that chiropractics boiled down to. Just sort of cracking and adjusting the spine in any which way to help it move. And I actually think that has done the profession quite a disservice. I think there's just so much more to what, we are meant to be doing than to be simply kind of performing. Baseline procedures like that on anyone who walks inside the door, because I think it creates a lot of fear. And so the misconception that, I think all chiropractors are just gonna be adjusting the spine. It might hurt, it might be dangerous, this and that. I think those are all misconceptions that truthfully, I think everyone, who sees me maybe for the first time has some of those questions. Mm-hmm. Right. So can you tell us about the different modalities or techniques that you use? Yeah, sure. I'll say kind of right off the bat, I think I'm a little bit unique in my field in that, I probably spend most of my time in a session, working with a patient pretty holistically. I'm a huge, advocate for. Good. Muscle conditioning, muscle strengthening, and we spend the bulk of our time kind of looking through the lens of that scope., I just think how our muscles are going to react to the world and how our body is going to react internally through the nervous system can affect so much of. How our systems are functioning, maybe more so than simply looking through the lens of like a structural lens. Is this person aligned? Is this joint moving this way, that way kind of thing. And so my personal philosophy is to evaluate the person as a whole. Modern pain science does show us that. Really pain is a very complex subject that involves, a lot of moving parts. It's called the bio-psychosocial Model of pain. And essentially what that refers to is three primary buckets of things that can cause pain. Biological factors such as tissue damage or inflammation. Psychological factors like your thoughts, your beliefs, your mood,, your stress and things like your social factors, like your social support, the environment you're in, your work, your culture, your family. And so if we're really looking at the person, how can we help them function better? But we're only addressing one of those things like, maybe this idea of a traditional chiropractor or physical therapist, someone who's just focusing on. How the body structures from a machine-like point of view, we're gonna totally miss out on the other two things, which are super important. Yeah, that's amazing. You know, I am a nutritionist and personal trainer, so of course we address nutrition and fitness together, but you really have to look at everything as a whole because you can only get so far when you have. When you look at one or two different factors. And so I've caught people off surprise sometimes with the questions that I ask in our, initial consults where they're like, well how does this relate? And it's like, okay, just trust me. You'll see. You're like, there's a method, there's a reason why I'm asking you these questions. Right, exactly. So would you say that you treat many different types of injuries and conditions, or, do you specialize in certain ones? I think I treat a pretty healthy variety of things, pretty much head to toe. I think my background in terms of injury management is rooted in the, like kind of a sports medicine type approach. and so of course we're dealing with all kinds of musculoskeletal injuries that can occur. Either new ones like sprains and strains and, concussions. Or old chronic pain, mm-hmm. Things that have been around for, quite a, long time and, we're really gonna focus on treating those things, uniquely very differently. Mm-hmm. So you've mentioned gut inflammation and chronic pain. Can you explain how those two are connected? Yeah, for sure. there's. So much recent evidence that our gut health, as you know, you spoke about in a previous episode, is so important to how our body is functioning, specifically as it pertains to the microbiome. And there's really quite a huge effect. And we look at the biopsychosocial model of pain. Well, nutrition is certainly. Part of that in, in a strange way, you know, personally, I kind of feel like it, it affects all three of those. It obviously affects our biology, but. a nutritional trend or an intake is certainly gonna affect our psychology too. We certainly see links with, you know, good nutritional intake or bad nutritional intake. I don't like using the word bad. Maybe, maybe a, a less than ideal intake sort of affecting our psychology in a negative way as well. Right? The psyche in our food is, is really intimately related at times. And then when we look at the social aspect, I mean. Food is social, right? We talk about family, we talk about culture. And so I think nutrition is sort of this unicorn in how our, our health operates and that it ties all three of those things together. And as it pertains to chronic pain, the easiest link to spot is that a nutritional trend that is gonna be pro-inflammatory inside of our body is gonna do a number of things. To understand inflammation is to understand it very simply in that our body's response to any injury, is going to be inflammation, right? And so we can see that on the macro, like a very easily seen example. If you sprain your ankle, it swells up like a balloon. But what we don't see is maybe if you eat a food that is going to, that your bot is less than ideal for your body. we're gonna have some inflammation inside the gut. That can affect, a number of things. Number one, healthy patterns of eating have an impact on nociception. And what that means is nociception is our nerves way of communicating pain. And so healthy eating has been proven to have to lower that, that nociceptive threshold. We're quite literally going to feel less pain when we're eating healthy. and so I think the bulk of how. Nutrition ties into chronic pain. I think that's where we start. I think that's a great starting place. Right? Yeah, I mean, that makes so much sense and I've seen a lot of inflammation just being like villainized, but inflammation is there to some degree to protect us, right? Like when we do get that ankle sprain, so it's not all bad, but when it can last months and years and you have that chronic inflammation, that is when we need to start addressing what is going on and why it's there. Yeah, I think you hit a really good point, which is like, chronic inflammation is really different than acute inflammation, right? And chronic inflammation really is responsible for most, if not all, chronic diseases that we experience, right? So especially as it pertains to di digestive issues or autoimmune issues, you know, inflammation effects are, when, the nerves become inflamed, when the gut becomes inflamed, it's really gonna have a whole, effect on our body. We look at things like fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, other, other autoimmune diseases like that. And there is research to suggest that that's so intricately related to your gut health, right? Yeah. And as a type one diabetic, an autoimmune condition, I know that there's. Kind of just gonna be underlying inflammation. So that's one of the reasons why I really try to keep my diet so clean, because I have that working against me a little bit. But I want to be able to set myself up for success. So I'll be around for a long time and I'll actually be able to enjoy it and not, Suffer all the consequences. If you see someone who's struggling with both chronic pain and gut health, besides the physical treatment that you do for them, where else do you recommend that they start? Well,, I think it sort of depends, I think, how often is that the answer in healthcare? Sometimes It depends. It depends on the context of what they may have going on. I'm a huge advocate for always bringing. More teammates to the table, right? So if we feel like maybe there's a nutritional, deficiency or some opportunity to improve that, I think bringing on some kind of, expert coach, whatever term you wanna use, some kind of provider to advise with some nutritional counseling, that can be extremely helpful. And, in context of that too. It really depends on how excited they are to make a change. Right? And I do believe that lifestyle change, can be challenging and the more people we have to help pull on the same rope can be good. Obviously having some kind of, physical medicine provider to help with whatever their pain condition may be. Whether that's, a chiropractor or a physical therapist, a personal trainer, someone who's going to work with maybe some of the physical deficits to help improve, strengthen, stabilize, whatever the kind of the root cause of that may be. And then there's this component that. Truthfully is probably the hardest one to talk about and maybe the most important, which is the psychological component, right? And so mental health, we have so many different kinds of specialists and providers in that field who are doing such an amazing job. And I think sometimes, my role as a,, portal of entry for some of these types of conditions is to make sure people are connected with, the folks that they need. Right. Yes. It takes a village. Totally. So, a lot of people, have desk jobs and there have been a lot of advances in ergonomics with standing desks and all of that. But for those who are at a desk for most of their day, can you give us any practical advice to help with posture and spine support? Sure. I think the one misconception is that a standing desk is gonna solve all of our problems, and it won't necessarily, but it can definitely help. It's a little bit cliche, but I do like the phrase, your best posture is your next posture. It's not necessarily about maintaining like the moment of perfection, but it's about moving dynamically throughout the day. And this applies to whether you're at a desk or, working in some kind of, manual field as well. It's getting a variety of movement, to avoid that repetitive stress on the same muscle, the same joint, the same whatever it may be. Mm-hmm. to make sure that your body is moving well and that's gonna just. Help those tensions not build up throughout the day. So that would be the best advice. Okay. Yeah. More movement. A body in motion stays in motion. That's right. That's totally right. For those who, for those who are working a desk job and they're like, well, how often do I sit and how often do I stand? If you've never stood at a desk before I. I would advise maybe only starting at like 15 minute increments. anything we do for the first time, we don't wanna do too long. Right. We always want to train our body appropriately for the task at hand. So if you're listening and you're thinking about doing this, I would suggest perhaps we sit for about two hours at a time. Stand for 15 minutes. And sit back down for two hours. That brings us probably to lunchtime. We can come back from lunch. We can sit for two hours. We can stand for 15 minutes and sit again to end the day. And each week we can add five to 10 minute increments to that stand until you feel comfortable to split your time. Okay. Yeah, that is so helpful. I've heard a lot of things about standing desks now. I even see like the walking treadmill ones too. so that'll be nice for those who want to do it in a healthy way for their body, not disrupt anything that they have going on. so you said you like to stay active. What are your favorite ways to get movement and exercise in? That has evolved a lot over the years, having, kids changes the dynamic a little bit and, I recall back before I had kids, it felt like I could do all these really fun activities and play sports recreationally and do all things. Now personally, my me time, my exercise time comes between about six 15 in the morning and 6 45, and so that's my time to be in the gym. That's my do not disturb time, and that works for me now. I encourage, those who are thinking about, how can they fit this in? How can they fit movement into a busy lifestyle? The best time to move is gonna be when you can, when you're least, disrupted. I'm a little bit biased, but I tend to think the mornings are a little bit more of a protected time. in the afternoons, if you are a parent, that's prime time. If you're in the home, that's primetime. If you're working a corporate job, I. There's so much opportunity throughout the day for fires and escalations and things that pull you away from what your scheduled day was gonna look like. So I advised just to, find the time that's most protected, that you can do most reliably, and try to get into a consistent routine. Yes, so I am honestly like one of the Sleepiest people I've ever met. Like if I was left alone, I would probably sleep for like 16 hours, but I have now started enjoying my 5:30 AM workouts, which I never. Thought would be possible. And it is still a little bit hard to get up every day, but Right. Like I'm not to disrupt it. I don't have to worry about checking texts or anything. The kids are still asleep and yeah, I can really focus on me and then I also feel a little bit more prepared for the day. Right. I have like better mental. Attitude and I didn't hit snooze seven times and start the day off late, so I also enjoying those morning workouts. What kinds of things did you do to make that easier? How, how did you make that transition from, from sleepy? I could sleep. 16 hours to I'm a 5:30 AM Wake up. Well, honestly, I think it was just finding the right gym. So, in 2020, the world shut down, but then we also moved and so I had not been going to a gym since 2020. I have, a ton of equipment at my house. And so I was just working out there, but I decided I needed a little bit more time out of the house, and I love this gym, and so I actually look forward to going, but I know if I do not get up in the morning, I won't make it the whole day and then I'll have to wait until the next day. So, I also talk about this, right? You just really have to find something that you love and enjoy, otherwise, you won't stick with it. It's true. You're so right. So can you tell me what do you wish more people knew about chiropractic care? What I wish people knew about chiropractic care is that it's more than simple back care, and it's more than laying down on a table and having someone you know, pop your back and trying to release tension. I. Good qualified chiropractor is going to be. Really focused on helping you reach your goals. And so if that means you don't prefer to have as much hands-on treatment and you want more focus on therapeutic exercise, that should be a very reasonable method of treatment. If you really just feel like you need the deepest tissue known to planet Earth and you want someone to just. Get in there, you should be able to find someone who can do that for you too. But in the framework of, we're gonna utilize this because of this goal, but we're also going to build in these other things on the side because that's what you need to. Mm-hmm. And so, you really should be finding,, something that's gonna help you reach your goals that you're comfortable with. Yeah, I never had chiropractic care until my twenties, so I did not know much about it. And I started seeing one for migraines, which, I don't get them anymore, so. It's amazing. but I was surprised that once I got pregnant, she was checking out the ligaments in my hips and whatnot. And of course everything is connected, but I wasn't expecting her to take that extra step to really, support my pregnancy and everything. I mean, it makes sense, I'm creating life and I need to be comfortable, but I really appreciated that because I wasn't expecting it. And I think that is a pretty good call out too. Thank you for sharing that story, but prenatal and postnatal care often doesn't get talked about very much. Right. It is so hard on the body physically to be pregnant. And while I have course and not capable of being pregnant, to witness like the miracle of pregnancy and how rapidly things change inside the body. I mean, earlier I was talking about how standing for more than 15 minutes at your standing desk shouldn't be done right away, but here we're growing an entire human in nine months. So the amount of physiological change going on in the muscle system, in the structure,, and it can be so encouraged to, to have some support in that area. And I think it's something a lot of people don't know. Yeah, absolutely. And then actually even after I had my daughter, she was so colicky, she just cried for four months straight and didn't nap or anything. So my chiropractor was like, bring her in. And of course my husband and I are like, is that okay? She's like six weeks old. I don't know. But I took her and yeah. You think, oh, they're gonna crack her neck. But no, it was not like that at all. It was so gentle and I did notice a difference. She started napping and having, regular bowel movements. So even chiropractic, on newborns can be amazing. It, it's so funny you say that because when our twins were born, I noticed like about. Maybe, a month being home that one of them, she was only sleeping with her head, turned to one side and it was developing a flat spot. And of course, being a chiropractor, I was like obsessed with this idea that she wasn't turning her head to the other side. Yeah. And if I was sort of just trying to kind of help guide her into those movements, it was pretty obvious she was in some discomfort. She didn't want that. And I don't personally work with babies but I did know that we have to find someone who can help. So I did find someone who was certified in chiropractic pediatrics and we took her in. And I have a very similar experience to you in that it was extremely gentle. Really the pressure of a thumb or maybe a pinky on a very specific part of the neck that was identified of maybe having the issue and my daughter sort of like contorted her body over this pressure point and was crying for about 10 seconds and then all of a sudden she stopped. And it was like silent in there. It was like very peaceful. It was almost sort of like eerie and. I'm like, wow, that was like quite an experience. I didn't think I really even knew what to expect. But that exceeded the expectation, at least in that moment. And we go home and everything seems pretty normal. And that night she filled up like five diapers. I mean, like the body was turned on, just like what you described. And, we maybe went back two weeks later and then two weeks after that. And I'd say within about. Three weeks after, she had made progress now every day since we first went and it had resolved. I was amazed. I think that those pediatric chiros, they're doing some amazing stuff. Yeah, so I wonder if that's maybe a twin thing because they have less room to move around, because I have a friend who's an identical twin, and she said the same thing. She was like, my neck was stuck only looking in one direction, so my mom would always put my sister on the other direction. Mm. And so, I guess eventually,'cause she would wanna look over at her sister, she, they were able to correct it. Well, you know, I hadn't considered that, but it is tight quarters. Yeah. I mean, you're sharing a pretty small space. It would certainly make some sense. Yeah. Maybe you get a little bit stuck. Definitely kicked in the head a couple of times in there. Oh yeah. Well, Dr. Dan, thank you so much for joining me. It was great to see you after, maybe 15, 20 years of not seeing each other. But, I just wanna give you the opportunity, if you have anything else you would like to add, or also please let everyone know where they can find you. Yeah, sure. Well, thank you so much for the opportunity of having me, and I really appreciate that. This has been a really fun conversation. for those of you who may be interested in following along, you can find me on Instagram at DM Chiropractic. and I am online, websites booking at. DM chiro dot jane app.com. You can find our website@dynamicmovementchiro.com. I do have in-person visits on a part-time basis in my practice in Danville, California. And I also do remote visits for anyone who wants to do a virtual consult. Oh, I was just gonna ask, so you can treat patients virtually? Yes, I can. If they're in the state of California, okay. And anyone who's interested in virtual, that could be simply because. It's more convenient than coming in and their focus is more on therapeutic exercise, maybe some holistic style coaching like we've discussed on this call today. Or maybe they just want to see what I'm all about and who I am before, making, a trek into the office. So I'm happy to meet either way. Okay, that is great information. Well, thank you so much again and I will talk to you soon. Thank you, Courtney. Take care. Thanks for hanging out with me today and tuning into the Nourished Living Podcast. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and found something you can start implementing right away to kickstart your nourished transformation. If you loved this episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, or share it with someone who could benefit from these insights. You can also connect with me over on Instagram at Nourished Living for more resources and support. Until next time, stay nourished.