EP 63 How To Eat To Change How You Drink with Dr. Brooke Scheller Pt. 1
Apr 02, 2024Season 1Episode 63
Deb, Mocktail Mom
Have you ever pondered the powerful role your eating habits might play on your alcohol-free journey? My two-part conversation with Dr. Brooke Scheller is completely packed with valuable insights that could potentially transform your approach to wellness. Dr. Scheller is a doctor of clinical nutrition, the founder of Functional Sobriety, and the author of How to Eat to Change How You Drink. After gaining freedom from alcohol in 2021, she took her experience in sobriety and applied her expertise in nutrition and functional medicine to help others change their relationship with alcohol to improve their health.
In part 1 of our discussion, we tackle the lingering stigmas surrounding sobriety, debunk myths, and illuminate the critical role of gut health and hormonal balance in our overall well-being. For us women at the menopausal stage, we get real about the unique hurdles we face and offer actionable advice and specific dietary tweaks to sustain our energy, balance our moods, and squash those cravings. So pour yourself a bubbly kombucha and join us in fighting for a healthier, alcohol-free existence.
Have you ever pondered the powerful role your eating habits might play on your alcohol-free journey? My two-part conversation with Dr. Brooke Scheller is completely packed with valuable insights that could potentially transform your approach to wellness. Dr. Scheller is a doctor of clinical nutrition, the founder of Functional Sobriety, and the author of How to Eat to Change How You Drink. After gaining freedom from alcohol in 2021, she took her experience in sobriety and applied her expertise in nutrition and functional medicine to help others change their relationship with alcohol to improve their health.
In part 1 of our discussion, we tackle the lingering stigmas surrounding sobriety, debunk myths, and illuminate the critical role of gut health and hormonal balance in our overall well-being. For us women at the menopausal stage, we get real about the unique hurdles we face and offer actionable advice and specific dietary tweaks to sustain our energy, balance our moods, and squash those cravings. So pour yourself a bubbly kombucha and join us in fighting for a healthier, alcohol-free existence.
Okay, you guys, it's Deb and I am doing something really special for this podcast episode. I'm breaking it up into two episodes, two episodes for you. I just chatted with Dr Brooke Scheller. She wrote this powerful book. It's called how to Eat to Change how you Drink. It's about healing your gut, mending your mind, improving nutrition to change your relationship with alcohol. And just personally, I've obviously removed alcohol from my life but definitely need to work on healing my gut and improving my nutrition. So, personally, just had a wonderful, wonderful conversation with her. But Dr Brooke is a doctor of clinical nutrition. She's nationally recognized health expert and the founder of Functional Sobriety, a nutrition-based program for alcohol reduction. Just absolutely loved her. Her book is really one of hope, of motivation, of peace and just learning that you're not alone. You're not alone. I was so encouraged personally and I know that your heart will be encouraged. That's my hope. So breaking this episode up into two weeks, two podcast episodes I like to keep my podcast to half hour or less, you know just feels that, feels good to me. So we went over that. So you know I'm like let's just break it up. We're going to break it up and we're going to have two podcasts. So here you go. Big time cheers to you from me, lots and lots of love.
Deb:
I am drinking. What am I drinking right now? A kombucha in my mocktail mom glass, and it is delicious. Talk to you guys soon, enjoy. Talk to you guys soon, enjoy. Buckle up, friends.
Deb:
And welcome to the Thriving Alcohol-Free Podcast. I'm your host, deb, otherwise known as Mocktail Mom, a retired wine drinker that finally got sick and tired of spinning on life's broken record called Detox to Retox. Let this podcast be an encouragement to you. If alcohol is maybe a form of self-care for you, where you find yourself dragging through the day waiting to pour another glass, I am excited to share with you the fun of discovering new things to drink when you aren't drinking and the joy of waking up each day without a hangover. It is an honor to serve as your sober fun guide. So sit back and relax or keep doing whatever it is you're doing.
Deb:
This show is produced for you with love from the great state of Kentucky. Thanks so much for being here and big time cheers, okay, guys. Hey, it's Deb. Welcome back to Thriving Alcohol-Free. I am so happy you're here today. We have an expert in the house. I don't even know how I got so lucky to have Dr Brooke. Dr Brooke, her brand new book How to Eat to Change How You Drink. This is a phenomenal book. I'm holding it in my hand, I bought it myself on Amazon and I can't wait to leave a wonderful review. Dr Brooke, thank you for joining me. How are?
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
you, deb. I am so excited to be here. I'm so thrilled. Thank you for asking me to come on the podcast and Excited to be here. I'm so thrilled. Thank you for asking me to come on the podcast and I love talking about this topic, so it never gets old for me and, having written literally written the book on it on nutrition and sobriety and how to use nutrition to fuel your alcohol-free journey, I just love talking about this and I love how often people take away even just one little simple thing that can really help their journey. So that's my mission, that's my goal today with you.
Deb:
That is so good, okay, yes, so let's just give some good nuggets today, some good takeaways, and it's like okay, if just one thing, if it's just one thing that you walk away with today to go like okay, this has really helped me on my journey. I just my whole goal of my podcast is just to be of encouragement to the listeners who are maybe sober, curious or, you know, on their sober journey.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
So okay, this is like this is an area, too, where it's really actionable, right, like there's a lot of discussions that we have in this space around our journeys and, you know, kind of like meshing in them. Well, here's where we're at and here's where we are and where we're stuck. Whereas this is really actionable, this is really like changing our body, our mind, how we feel, the energy that we feel, the hormone imbalances that we're experiencing, the digestive issues that we have. Like this is where we can all put like rubber to the road. So we'll definitely have good takeaways today.
Deb:
I'm so excited, okay, so where do we start? Because your book is all about healing your gut, mending your mind, improving nutrition. I am a complete failure. I have stopped drinking. That is the good thing, but like in terms of like I was reading and it's like you have a nutrition plan, you have exercise guidelines.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
You just have such good nuggets in here, yeah so let me first start by how I decided to write this book, like how I perfect this, because I like telling the story and I think that it's helpful, just as some like level setting. I'm a doctor of nutrition but I had a drinking problem. You know, I even say this in the book like this is proof, you can know a lot of things and still like not be able to do the things right Now. You said, deb, you maybe aren't doing all the other things, but you quit drinking and that's one of the hardest things to do. So like snaps, claps for that. Because that is so, so important and a big part of like the first step on this journey for so many of us is we have to clear away that roadblock before we can maybe start to embark a little bit more on that health and wellness journey.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
But you know, just like so many of us, I started drinking really young. I started drinking quite heavily and. But I always had this interest in nutrition and health and I pursued several degrees in nutrition and along the way, was able to find all the people that would drink too. So you know, for those who don't know, there's still a lot of drinking in the health and wellness world. A lot of physicians are drinkers. A lot of nurses are drinkers. The people who are experts in health are oftentimes drinking because it's a high stress environment. It's a high stress job and lifestyle that they're living stress job and lifestyle that they're living.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
When I went through my own sobriety journey in the spring of 2021, I recognized shortly into it that really no one was talking about this piece of health and wellness, that a lot of the broader society was still talking about alcohol with health halo. Oh, you should be able to have a little bit because it's good for you. Quote unquote, which has all been debunked. We talk a little bit about that in the book too, and so it really became my mission to start to bring nutrition into the sober and sober curious space, but also to bring alcohol reduction to the broader health and wellness space, which is the even bigger opportunity, because there's still so many people who are drinking so much and not aware of how it's affecting the body. So some of the things in the book, like gut health, like hormones, like blood sugar you know we don't recognize how much alcohol is maybe contributing to some of these things and it can actually be a really big factor.
Deb:
Totally, totally Okay. I love what you just said, how alcohol can have a health halo, right, because how many times was I like, oh, I'm drinking red wine. I mean it's healthy.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
This is good for me, right? Yeah, and actually I'll never forget. I can still very vividly remember this moment where in one of my classes for my doctoral studies then we were reading a book and it was talking about how Pinot Noir is the highest in antioxidants.
Deb:
And.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
I am not kidding you, I underlined it, I started. I'm like this is why I drink Pinot Noir, because it's the highest in antioxidants the better choice. But I was really drinking like several glasses and or bottles of wine and therefore there is no health benefit with that. But it's unfortunately been this thing that has allowed us to justify this behavior for so long. It's allowed us to justify to ourselves that maybe we're not doing something that's super harmful, but it's also been really a public health issue that we haven't informed people correctly of the effects of alcohol, and so there are some reasons why that might be industry reasons and financial ties and things that are maybe driving that.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
But now we're starting to look more at it through the lens of tobacco.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
We're going to see it shift more in that direction over the next couple of years. The World Health Organization is working on some changes, you know, to follow kind of suit with how we, how we changed tobacco use in not only this country but in the world, and so we will continue to see some of these truths come out about alcohol. It's still quite early, but a lot of really monumental research was put out in 2020, 2021, 2022, around really debunking a lot of those previously held beliefs around the quote unquote benefits at low amounts and there's a few reasons why that's not necessarily true and there's some skewing in the studies that were done a long time ago on that and really a lot of the recent research says that no amount of alcohol is safe for our health, that if you truly want to pursue health, you truly want to reduce your risk of chronic disease, if you want to improve even not just again long term outcomes, but also short term how you feel, how your mood is, how your hormones are, your digestion, etc.
Deb:
Oh, it's, yeah, it's people that you think like right, because it used to be. You know, everyone was smoking, it was totally acceptable. So now do you feel like there's still, though, around, even though things are changing, definitely changing? Do you feel like there's still like a stigma around the word like sober or alcoholic, like how do you feel people's responses when you like, when you use those words?
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
Absolutely, there's definitely still stigma is when you use those words. Absolutely, there's definitely still stigma, even in 2024, I think we'll continue to see this shift in a positive way. But I think that those of us who are in the sobriety space, we're so immersed in it that we don't recognize it. But sometimes, if I'm speaking to groups of people I'm doing a presentation, for example, to people who are not, or I'm on a health podcast rather than a sobriety podcast the conversation is really different and it's more around. You know, how do we get people to consider cutting back and to start shifting the way that they're thinking about it? But it's a very different conversation away from that word sobriety, because they think that that means, if they're taking part in something where sobriety is mentioned, that that means that they had a problem. And we even see this too, even in my groups, with people who are going alcohol free, that they're worried about what their family thinks about it, what their co-workers think about it. They don't want to talk about it, and I always like to say that there's so much power in this. This is a superpower, really, of all things. I know we all talk about this in the sobriety space in that way, but this is not. I failed and I can't drink alcohol, and this is my problem.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
A lot of the conversation that needs to happen, that needs to shift, is this is and I talk about this in the book this is a toxic, addictive substance and will be for anyone who continues to put it into their body, right.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
The challenge is that some people, based on genetics or based on their body, their physiology, they feel better when they drink it, so they'll keep drinking more. Other people don't feel as good and so they don't have as much of a desire to drink it. But if you're someone who's feeling good and this is you know I'm feeling good from this. It's helping me relax. The more you're putting it into your body and it seems harmless, the more you're actually training your system into almost needing it for survival, and this is not about you as the person doing something wrong. This is the substance and this is the discussion that we need to keep having in not only the sobriety space but the health and wellness space, that this is not a separate conversation only reserved for people who identify as alcoholics or having a substance use disorder. This is a problematic substance for anyone who drinks it. I feel so passionately about this.
Deb:
I get like all I know and I'm just nodding. I mean, I don't, people can't see me, but I'm just nodding. I'm like, oh yes, exactly. And why did I feel so much better? Because it just started. I didn't start out drinking wine every day. I didn't start out drinking a glass of wine every night at five o'clock, but then at the end of my drinking career end of 2020, it was like that was every day, pretty much.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
And this is how it happens for so many people, and there's reasons why that can happen. Right, our body, our physiology. And this is where I love like I love the science part. This is where I'm super nerdy about all of this and the biochemistry. But part of what inspired the three drinking archetypes which we can shift to next is when I started embarking on this journey, this research journey.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
For me it was like well, why am I more inclined to become a heavy drinker where someone else can take it or leave it? What's going on in my body that is making me crave, desire this, become addicted to it, while someone else might not? Right, and yes, of course there is trauma, there's behaviors, there's habits, there's all these other kind of underlying factors from behavioral, mental health standpoint. But we have to have to have to consider the other 50%, which is our body's physiology. And for so long we have just disregarded that and said well, if you're an alcoholic, you're an alcoholic and that's you know. That's that.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
The reality is that our bodies and the, the imbalances or balances, and things like our nutrient levels and things like our gut health and things like our neurotransmitters in our brain, these are all malleable.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
They are all adaptable, based on how we eat, what we drink, how we exercise, the lifestyle that we live, the amount of stress that we're under, style that we live, the amount of stress that we're under. So this is good news because we actually have a lot more control than we previously believed that we did, and that's where nutrition, lifestyle changes, even things like supplements, can be really beneficial. And one example that I'll give here is if you're someone who's maybe drank because you have experienced low mood or depression or anxiety that might be the result of these imbalances, it might be driven by an imbalance in your gut, might be driven by a nutrient deficiency that's contributing to low mood, and alcohol is actually making that worse right. So when we take out alcohol out of the system, we can start to heal the body and rebalance the body. But also we might need help of nutrition or supplementation to actually help to boost and rebalance and make it easier for us to stop Right Like that. Yeah, that's the trick, that's the kicker right there.
Deb:
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Deb:
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Deb:
With Giesen's 0% wines. There's a de-alcoholized wine for everyone and every occasion. Give Giesen a try and let me know how much you love it and if you want to meet their winemaker, go back to episode 33 of the podcast, where Duncan Shuler joined me to share about the Giesen story. Okay, how do you figure out if you have you know nutritional imbalances and you know you're missing supplements and you need to? What what you need to be taking? How do I figure out how I can feel better? I am three years alcohol-free. I don't exercise, but I do pay for the YMCA, so somebody like in my situation in menopause you know, still having hot flashes what tests do you do? What do you do to figure out what I?
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
need. Well, you are just like so many of the women that I work with in my group in the Functional Sobriety Network it's probably, I would say, 60 or more percent women in that menopause, postmenopausal arena. A lot of hormone imbalances, a lot of alcohol kicked up after big life changes, kids moved out, all that Divorce, check, check, check, check. Yep, not an uncommon thing, but there's a few things right. So sometimes you can bring in some simple recommendations that we can talk about here. That can you know. You can trial and error and see what works, see what helps, what helps with cravings, what helps with mood, whatever those goals are. But I do also work with a lot of clients one on one to run testing and do evaluation, because the testing can be really helpful in us understanding what's really going on. Like a lot of times we're stuck with that guessing, like, well, maybe I'm deficient in this, or maybe it's because my cortisol is high, or maybe it's a hormone imbalance, but it's hard to know if we don't actually have real information, the data.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
Yeah, so most of my clients and in my groups everyone has access to to order their own testing through our services, through our platform, so they can do a gut health test and see what's going on in their gut. They can run nutrient deficiency tests and see if they're deficient in some nutrients. They can run a hormone test, or I can work with them to run a hormone test and evaluate that so that we can say, actually maybe we thought this was hormones but it's actually more of an issue with gut and that way, when we know, we can support it appropriately right Start to heal, so like you said, there's a lot of things that we can do.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
To start, In the book I talk a lot about things like even just increasing your protein intake throughout the day. One of the big things especially if you have a history of frequent drinking heavy drinking is we oftentimes develop hypoglycemia. Hypoglycemia is low blood sugar or we have this tendency to be more likely to fall into these low blood sugar slumps. When that happens, when we're in that state of low blood sugar, that's the hangry feeling that we get, that's the irritability, that's the low energy, that's an irritable mood, that is maybe low mood. And this is also where we can experience not only cravings for alcohol, but we can also experience cravings for sugar and for carbohydrates. And so even just by adapting the diet to increase protein every single meal throughout the day, but also focusing on more frequent meals and snacks. So another big thing I talk about is every three to four hours, you should be having something to eat.
Deb:
I was very surprised by that, because so many people talk about intermittent fasting and I was like, yes, yeah, and I was like okay.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
Yeah, I want to hear about this Not intermittent fasting, especially with an alcohol use history, especially if you're early in your alcohol free journey, because, again, we may have this likelihood to slip more into the state of low blood sugar. Anytime we're in a state of low blood sugar, it's going to make this one word that everyone loves, willpower, really, really, really hard right. So you're listening and you're probably at some point have said, well, well, I just don't have the willpower to say no to this cookie, or I don't have the willpower to say no to that glass of wine. Willpower is your body sending you a signal saying I need something. So, instead of beating ourselves up and saying, well, I'm just not strong enough, this is a matter of what is my body asking for.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
If I'm craving sugar, carbohydrates or alcohol, there's a good chance that you're simply hungry, you're in a state of low blood sugar and this is oftentimes I always like to talk about this in that afternoon time frame right. So everyone struggles at the witching hour, the 5 o'clock, 3, 4, 5 o'clock, 3, 4, 5 o'clock. Well, my first question is when was the last time you had something to eat? My first question is when was the last time you had something to eat? Because typically, if it's five o'clock and you're craving a glass of wine or you're craving a sweet or a treat, you might not have eaten since lunch.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
Maybe you had an afternoon snack, but maybe it was a high carb snack. The first thing that you should be doing in the afternoon time every single day, between three and five snack, high protein, maybe some healthy carbs in there. So I have a whole bunch of things listed in the book, but one thing I love to do is a cheese plate, like all your little accoutrements. You can have your little gherkins, your nuts, your cheese, your crackers, all those little fun things. Even doing a protein shake in the afternoon an apple and some peanut butter or some nuts, hard boiled eggs I'm actually a huge fan of deviled eggs so like they're, so good.
Deb:
No, and I make them for my husband. Yeah, yeah, I love deviled eggs.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
You can. You don't have to pop a boring, hard boiled egg. You just take out the yolk, whip it up with a little Dijon mustard, some spices, a little avocado mayo, if you will Boom Like fun little snack, exciting, tasty. So having something to eat in the afternoon, even if it's a protein bar, something to eat at that time, is going to be key for overcoming those cravings.
Deb:
I love that. Yeah, the willpower is maybe your body saying like what is it? What's your body asking for? What is my body asking for?
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
Yeah, my body is like you didn't eat since last night. That's what I'm asking for. Well, and here's the thing is, we get really disconnected from our bodies when we're heavy drinkers, right? So, like the go-to always becomes oh, I'm uncomfortable, something doesn't feel right, I need to have a drink.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
Part of this journey and this exploration in sobriety, sober, curiosity, cutting back even if it is is coming back into your body and saying, okay, I need something. My body's telling me I need something. Our responsibility is what is that that I'm needing? Is what is that that I'm needing? Is it food? Is it a nap? Is it a walk? Is it calling a friend? Is it a cry sesh? Because our bodies are really, really smart. They don't need alcohol to survive. That is a adapted behavior, that is a habit that we've created. So when we break this habit, it's really a lot about just getting back to these basics of saying, okay, I'm uncomfortable right now. Before I pick up a drink, let me just like tune in a little bit. What is it that I need right now? And that can be a really hard thing for so many of us to do, because it's not natural.
Deb:
It can be, especially when you've yeah, you've had that noise for so long, right.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
Yeah, but it's all habits and this is where these podcasts, books, the Quit Lit books, for example, being involved in community in some way, whatever that community is, having people around you that can help you see this, help you walk through this it's all such a critical part of the process.
Deb:
No, I think you're right. Yeah, Just to know that you're not alone, and I think that's definitely you know. What the book shares is that you're not the only one struggling with this.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
No, in fact, many, many, many more people than we even have the statistics to show are struggling with this. You know, I really believe the statistics that we see around substance use disorder, alcohol use disorder, I think they're all it's very underreported and I think that so many more people are struggling with this than we want to believe. We want to believe that. You know, again, this is a separate category of people who are over here and it's not. It's really much more immersed in our culture than we're willing to believe in. That we're willing to look at.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
But we're on the edge of a big change here. We're on the edge of a shift, and if you are exploring sobriety right now, or sober curious, you are on the forefront of this big change and so it's, it's good, it's not something that is negative or harmful. And the other thing I'll say in that is like this doesn't have to be a choice because you have a quote unquote problem or because you know you have to identify yourself as having an addiction. One of the first lines in the book is we're not going to use any of those labels because it doesn't mean anything. This is a choice for your health. This is. I want to feel good. I want to take care of myself, I want to be in control of my life and my energy and my mood and my hormones and all those things, and I'm going to say no to alcohol because I want to choose that instead.
Deb:
It's so much more of a positive spin it is, and it's the truth. Yeah, it's the truth. Yeah, it's not even a spin, it's just the mindset of really shifting your mindset to looking at it in this way for the betterment of your health overall. Okay, everybody, go grab your book how to Eat, to Change how you Drink. Make sure you are following Dr Brooke on Instagram all the places. Thank you, Thank you. Thank you for your time, thank you for being here. I am such a fan and just so thrilled to have met you just screen to screen here today. So thank you for your time.
Dr. Brooke Scheller:
Yeah, so nice to meet you, deb. Thanks for having me, and I hope everyone takes a little tip away from today that they can implement.
Deb:
A hundred percent. Big time cheers to you for tuning into the Thriving Alcohol-Free Podcast. I hope you will take something from today's episode and make one small change that will help you to thrive and have fun in life without alcohol. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the podcast, please share it with others, post about it on social, send up a flare or leave a rating and a review. I am cheering for you as you discover the world of non-alcoholic drinks and as you journey towards authentic freedom. See you in the next episode.