I will be clear. Some of these are life changing and have been a HUGE piece for my healing journey. I am so grateful for my Chinese Medicine practitioner and mentor Kelley Toms and also for all of the amazing Chiropractic care these past years. Finding both of these holistic perspectives has guided me from a girl that had Del Taco every Friday as a treat, to a girl that doesn't drink from the tap because she knows better. I just want to emphasize that there wasn’t just one miracle adjustment, or one miracle herb, or one miracle practitioner, in my case, to bring me to where I am now.

5 years ago in Chiropractic school, I was honestly in survival mode. I remember one specific day in the shower, listening to a recorded class, and taking bites from a Taco Bell bean burrito while I was washing my hair and crying. I also remember one day my roommate coming into our apartment and finding me on the floor crying with hundreds of colorful index cards filled with orthopedic tests all around my body and on my face. And even though I had the most amazing teachers and mentors telling me every day that my body was my temple and that the “power that made the body heals the body,” I was just not paying attention. Even though my body was already screaming, I wasn't knocked down on the floor. Yet. Kind of. 

Man do I love Chiropractic. 

“I will sell Chiropractic, serve Chiropractic, and save Chiropractic if it will take me twenty lifetimes to do it. I will promote it within the law, without the law, in keeping with the law or against the law in order to get sick people well and keep the well from getting sick.”

 -BJ Palmer

Chiropractic care didn’t save my life, but it sure did change it. And that change saved my life. 

See, there is nothing like the power of intention. But I hadn’t realized that that intention not only had to come from the practitioner providing me care, it had to come from me every single day of my life. Intention with my sleep, my water, my foods, my rituals, my emotions, my movement, my thoughts, what I put on my body, what I put in my body, the people I surround myself with, my family, my boundaries, my time, my practice members, my adjustments, my work hours, EVERYTHING. 

Chiropractic care also changed my brain. One of the most intentional Chiropractors I know (I wish I knew personally), is Doctor Heidi Havick. She is making sure we have more research in our profession to merge the art, philosophy and the science. With her research there is factual evidence that the Chiropractic adjustment actually changes the brain. It alters our prefrontal cortex (regulates our thoughts, actions, and emotions). Pretty important things I would say. And it has taken years for me to notice changes in my mental health, my emotional coping, my thoughts, my addictions, etc. But I can surely tell you that the person who I am now vs the person I was 5 years ago, it’s at least 90% different. And I have grown to love both of them. 

How lucky was I to find Chinese medicine and NIS.

I honestly can’t talk much about Chinese medicine. You don’t know what you don’t know and I think it’s best when you just don’t know what the heck is happening. My mentor Kelley Toms is not only a chinese medicine practitioner, she is a talented NIS (Neuro Integrative System) provider. I’m pretty sure she is the only person that utilizes this specific set of skills in North Carolina. What her training involves with the brain and the body goes way beyond what I have done with my practice members. But basically what I love about it and understand about it is that the goal is to find where the circuits sending the messages are “off” or “out” and then connecting them so that the body can do the rest. Just like what I fell in love with in Chiropractic, albeit through a different lens.

Kelley has pushed me to be the best version of myself as a practitioner, as a wife, as a friend and as a human. Her treatments have literally changed the way that I feel physically and the way that I feel emotionally. It’s very hard to describe her talent and gift. Let’s just say I recommend you go outside of the box and find a practitioner who is kind hearted, smart as heck and is well trained in their protocols! With Kelley I learned that less is more and that it takes time to process anything. I have also learned that you don’t need to understand everything and that listening to your body is the most empowering feeling ever. 

My diet journey has been all over the place.

Please! Hear me out. If I have learned anything from EVERYTHING it is that you have to be discerning. There are a lot of people out there selling things, claiming things, and even bashing things. I follow how I feel and the actual factual science. And what we have found is that we need to switch from a SAD diet to a hyper nourishing whole foods diet. I will not discuss or bash here any sort of diet, but if you take anything away from this blog post, I hope that it is this: for the love of the angels, please, stop eating processed foods. Just stop it! 

There are thousands of people sharing their stories on how elimination diets, plant-based diets, paleo diets, and other diets, have been life changing. What is the common denominator on all of these? They stopped eating garbage.

With my practice members I don’t push any agenda, as we are all unique and we are all in VERY different phases of our healing. In my case, I have gone through an elimination diet, to a paleo diet, to a dairy/gluten free diet, to a carnivore diet, to a fruitarian diet, well the list goes on and on. What has worked for me is a very well-balanced, whole foods, non-processed diet. I eat everything from the ground, I don’t eat ANYTHING processed, I don’t drink alcohol, and my only “processed” product is coffee and raw cacao. Everything that I eat does not have an ingredient list.

WHAT? HOW?

Don’t you stop reading just because I’m a “weirdo”, please do not judge me! I have learned that to completely reverse dis-ease, I had to perform the ultimate act of self-love. I had to take full responsibility for my body. This is full empowerment, full autonomy, full resilience, and a full act of unconditional self-love. I figured out a balance that has worked for me. Someone with chronic dis-ease, constant meningitis flares, chronic medications, chronic low blood pressure spells, chronic narcotic use for menstrual pain, chronic heart fluid accumulation, chronic lung fluid accumulation, chronic hair loss, chronic joint pain, chronic brain fog, chronic ADD, chronic nerve pain, chronic CPTSD, chronic HSV-1 flares, chronic EBV flares, protein in my urine, abnormal liver enzymes, severe eczema, severe food allergies, anaphylactic reactions… oh goodness I’m not even halfway there. You get the picture.

I was not the most healthy human being on this planet. I’m still not there. But oh do I wake up every day and strive to be that person. But this is the story of how a very unhealthy version of myself made the shift to make every single decision an opportunity to love myself and my body. I make sure now that I am very intentional with every single decision I make during my day. 

Do you want to know my secret on HOW THE HECK I do this?

I remind myself that my body is not attacking me, killing me, or failing me. Rather, my body is protecting me from my actions. I have come to the sobering realization that I have been attacking my body this entire time. With this comes the most basic NEED, which is to let go of the most toxic relationship in my life… and that is with myself.

Mic drop?

I could just finish the blog post right here and hopefully set some inspirational seeds in you. But I will add some tips you can start doing RIGHT NOW, not tomorrow, no matter what part of your healing journey you are: 

1. From “Meh” foods to WHOLE FOODS. Go look inside your fridge and recognize what percentage of the things in there are packaged? If it’s packaged, it’s processed! Look in your pantry, your daily snacks, etc. Instead of focusing SO much on what not to eat (if you are a healthy human, not autoimmune), I would focus on what I can eat to FUEL my body and live with so much energy people get annoyed with me.

How is your diet looking? 

Are you eating enough antioxidants? 

Colors? Fruits? Veggies? 

How is your fiber intake? 

Are you pooping every day? 

What is your Omega-3, 6, 9 ratio? 

Are you eating enough protein? 

Do you eat refined sugars? Do you add splenda into your coffee?

Do your plates/meals look balanced?

2. START SMALL!

• Stop eating fast foods. We get it, it’s convenient and fast. It’s actually faster putting a smoothie together, heating up some leftovers, cooking a big batch of veggies and root veggies in the oven twice a week. And who cares about convenience if in a few years your kids will see you sick, with a diagnosis, with an unnecessary hospitalization or procedure. 

• If you buy processed foods, get simple ingredients. In our home I can't live without pasta! So instead of one made out of grains I buy one that only has chickpeas and two types of lentils. No other ingredients. We also love having some milk in our coffee. We love a specific milk that only has cashews and water. We also sometimes just make our own milk. Cashew, oat, etc.

• Start cooking easy and simple foods. Our staples are: Sweet potatoes, potatoes, millet, quinoa, cauliflower, broccoli, asparagus, cabbage, avocado, guacamole, carrots, kale, spinach, chickpeas, black beans, white beans, lentils, cashews, walnuts, peanuts, flax seeds, chia seeds, cacao, bananas, lemons, onion, garlic, oranges, apples, mango, tomatoes, peppers, cherries, pineapple, cashew milk, walnut milk, oats, mushrooms, etc. If you eat meat you can add salmon, sardines, grass fed chicken, etc. Do you think our diet is expensive? NOPE

• Substitute morning coffee sweetener for a less processed sugar like honey, maple syrup, date syrup, etc. I shoot for just one ingredient.

• Substitute coffee creamer for homemade creamer. We use cashew milk just with water (our favorite) and we add pumpkin spice and maple syrup.

• Stop buying refined sugar completely. Look at the ingredients in your juice, snacks, ice cream, bread, yogurt, granola, tea, crackers, chips, pretty much anything you eat has a potential to have added sugars or fake sugar.

• Stop ALL seed oils. All vegetable oils! We only eat olive oil, coconut oil, avocado oil and uncooked flaxseed oil. 

• Start increasing fruits. Buy a range of different fruits! If your worries about insulin spikes, add them to your salads with some nuts and avocado. Yum! 

• Start increasing fiber. This might take time depending on your gut health. In our home we eat at least 24 oz of cruciferous veggies a day. You can start cooking at least 10 oz a day and see how you feel. 

• Increase Omega-3 intake. Many healthy foods have Omega-3 but most of them also have Omega-6 like avocados. If you want to focus on an anti-inflammatory pathway in your body you can eat these 2 seeds: Chia and Flax. Just 2 tablespoons of chia seeds contains 324% of Omega-3 and 28% of fiber recommended daily. And ¼ cups of flax seeds (freshly grounded) contain 871% of Omega-3, 46% of fiber and 7g of protein! We add these to our smoothies every day.

*Side note: You might notice some bowel changes if you increase fiber! You want to know my secret? I have a bowel movement 3-4 times a day. Beautiful bowel movements. And that my friend is one of the most amazing signs of vitality. 

3. Surround yourself with people that support you. I would say that most of my friends eat healthy! And the ones that don’t are SO good at supporting me and not making us feel strange at a fun dinner. Those friends are gold. 

4. Stop people-pleasing. This is a great time to start practicing self love, boundaries and stop the people-pleasing. Your husband doesn’t want to eat that? So? Do it for yourself. Your friends want to eat burgers and beer? Get the gluten free option or veggie option if it’s not grass fed, at least. Or just order the salad. What is the big deal? Do you boo.

5. Read books that will support your new habits. I can go down the rabbit hole of books that I have fallen in love with and ones that I hated but I knew they were right. The China study, Atomic Habits, books about food addiction such as The Pleasure Trap, Goodbye Autoimmune, Grain Brain, Young Forever, or any blue zone book also.

6. Look for guidance. There are so many people out there that want to help you create the healthy life of your dreams. I am one of them! If you want to book an appointment with me to start your Healthy Habits Coaching book with me HERE.

I love my job

I am starting to blog more about my journey because every day I see people in my practice, I have an “AHA moment.” Every time I ask myself: How can I help more people? During my Chiropractic care and my Healthy Habits Coaching I meet my people where they are at. Here, I can tell you just how much I pushed myself and all about the most powerful of healing that awaits inside each and every one of us. So far in my journey, it has it has been incredibly rewarding and nothing short of a miracle.

In healing and love,

Natalia Canchaney Brownley, DC