Is There an Easier Version?
I stared out over the sea of beautiful women from all walks of life. It was an intimate gathering in the West Village, and we were there to talk mental health, healing depression, and personal transformation.
Heather spoke up. She had dabbled with different diets, some supplements, but ultimately, she says, always gave up feeling frustrated and even more dejected than when she started because now she had “failed” at trying to help herself. She had been on and off of antidepressants and felt, deep down, that this wasn’t the path for her. She wasn’t sure if they had helped or not but coming off of them was always “a nightmare.”
She said, “The dietary protocol you outline in A Mind of Your Own seems extreme and overwhelming. Is there an easier version?”
You already know the answer.
But, the question is natural. It is the way we’ve been trained to think about our health. If our bodies and minds are acting up, do whatever it takes to quickly put them in order. Get rid of those symptoms and get back to your desk. Stay afloat. Nothing to see here. Keep punching the clock. Who has time for a complicated health regimen? Oh yeah, I’ll just head out to a holistic health retreat to be fed organic grapes while lounging on a hemp, chakra-aligning mat.
The problem is that this mentality – the I don’t have time, or It’s too hard to change mentality – is exactly what is keeping you stuck.
The quick and easy fix is a really tempting concept. We keep taking the bait, neglecting our deeper awareness that it Does. Not. Exist.
I know you may be thinking – yes it does!
What about antibiotics? What about the Pill? What about Tylenol? Coffee tooootally works!
I used to live a life papered over by quick fixes. I had to learn the untold story of their hidden costs so that I could resolve the autoimmune disease I developed as a result of these quick fixes.
Even today, I’m a seriously impatient person, and I am still working with my Western medicine indoctrinated brain that says we need outcomes! Results! Improvement! Now!
In fact, I’m amazed that I ever thought antidepressants were a reasonable “fix” of any kind at all considering any psychiatrist would tell you they take 6-8 weeks to “work.”
Amazingly, I went on to learn that antidepressants don’t work the way we think they do, and they come with risks I never even considered, including impulsive violence and debilitating withdrawal. To say this shocked me as a conventionally trained psychopharmacologist, would be the understatement of the century.
Importantly, they can distract you from an opportunity to identify the real cause of your symptoms, a cause which is entirely reversible, in my experience.
That’s why I am very into the model of root-cause-resolution that I use in my practice. We need a month of serious prescription-level commitment to change. ONE MONTH.
It’s a month of your whole life! It’s a blip. The past month flew by so quickly you can barely tell me anything about it, I bet.
Don’t you deserve to understand a bit more about your relationship to food and the role it has in everything you hate about your life experience?
Stop listening to all those voices haunting you saying you can’t do it. Saying you’re not that hardcore. Saying you’re always a cheater. Saying, “This is for someone else, but not me”. Stop making excuses and look boldly into the eyes of your resistance. Look at it, smile, and push on through.
The Deep Rewards of Deep Commitment
When you go all in, you do it with your heart. You believe that this is a real possibility for you – transformation in a month. You send your body, mind, and spirit a message, loud and clear. And then, it happens.
You learn through feeling the change.
Specifically, you learn what you feel like when you’re eating food stripped of the addictive push-pull so many of us struggle with like an abusive relationship we keep running back to. What if when you quit sugar, alcohol, coffee, wheat, and dairy, you aren’t the irritable, tired, forgetful person you always thought you were? Well, then you have information and you can make choices in fuller informed consent!
This type of information is called experiential knowing.
You could read this book and all the studies in it and love the idea of natural healing, but it won’t be until you show yourself that your body can heal through a healthy relationship with the natural world…it’s not until then that this journey will become yours.
I remember the day I saw my thyroid antibodies come down from the high 2000’s to the normal range. I saw it in black and white. My dietary change had resulted in remission of an illness I had been taught was chronic. I did this! And you know what, after a few challenging weeks of adjustment, not only did it become easy, but I felt like a new person in life and on paper. There was no going back. It’s like moving through a birth canal and being born as the real you.
If you 80/20 this – If you get two weeks in and then realize that you’re starving at a party and, well, it’s just one slice of pizza – If you have just that small piece of birthday cake – you’re depriving yourself of the experiential knowing and the clear signal that comes with it.
The worst part is that then you could be left in purgatory.
If conventional medicine has failed you and you complete your month of half-hearted effort, you may be left doubting the power of nutrition to heal. Then what? You could be a patient without a philosophical home! You could have missed your opportunity to take charge of your experience of health.
Heal Your Body, Reclaim Your Life
The diet I discuss should taste and feel great if it’s the right starter template for you. It should be tasty, filling, and liberating. That is once you wrest yourself from the grips of food-like products designed specifically to coopt your brain and body with their hyperstimulatory chemicals.
Feel empowered to have discovered this tool. Your body is merciful. You can trash it for decades, like I did, and it will still give you a fresh start.
When you’re ready, the tools of transformation are available. The menu is there. Honoring food is the first step in an incredible journey of empowerment you won’t regret. Find that little voice inside that knows there is something powerful in food-based healing and give it a microphone. It will undoubtedly say, Just Do It!
Kelly. I am reading your book. I am on chapter 3. I am a 77 year old man. I am in good health and I attribute that to being very active and good eating. I take no meds. I have a lovely wife and family. I do sometimes have crazy dreams and I think it related to what I eat. I eat 95/5 all natural foods, including wheat. I stay away from most dairy and alcohol. I do have a drop of coffee and maybe a bit of sugar. It seems your diet regimen is a bit overboard though. I am thinking about it though and might bite the bullet to see how much it helps. Thanks for your great insight and knowledge about BIG PHARMA. I have some friends that are in that loop. I keep trying to get them to recognize they have a mind of their own. Vince.
Vince,
I was at Kelly’s conference today in London and on the panel.
Key thing here is:
You state you are in good health.
The protocol is designed for those who are not. Many have tried ‘everything’ to feel better.
Kelly offers a radical approach which has been shown in her practice and increasingly through people applying it themselves – to be life changing.
If you are settled In your life and tolerate wheat, dairy and sugar and have no health concerns then it is more difficult to commit to radical dietary change.
But like you say – try it for a month and see.
I myself eat dairy, drink (some) coffee and red wine but feel compelled to try the protocol for a month to see if energy, cognition and sleep improve.
Best!
Very nice writing. I am preparing myself for the plunge. Havent bought the book yet. Plan on it. Are the eggs ok raw? You dont think 3 eggs daily is too many eggs?
Kelly states her smoothie mix can be for 2-3 people.
Drink as much as you like to feel full.
Properly sourced eggs are a very healthy food source. We were long led tobeleove incorrectly about cholesterol in eggs raising blood cholesterol.
Choline helps heal the brain.
Start low with the smoothie as it’s lot of fat for a system not used to this.
You may need digestive enzymes or betain hcl/ apple cider vinegar to support fat digestion.
A brief note to say THANK YOU for your courage, tenacity and eloquence. I too adored Dr. Gonzalez, and I a have been a committed Weston A. Price (Sally Fallon Morell) fan for many years. I work in the field of mental health and would LOVE to get you to come speak to mental health professionals. (Roanoke, VA area). But that is not why I am writing. I really just love all that you are doing. I purchased your book and have sent emails out to many saying it is a MUST READ. I have followed you for quite a while and feel good that I am finally sending you this note. xox
I have not read your whole book yet but can so relate with this post. My oldest daughter had autism. To rid her of autism we had to follow the diet laid out in the book Gut and Psychology Syndrome. It was the hardest change my husband and I ever did but it was so worth it to have our daughter back.
Beautiful Kelly (that’s my daughter’s name too)… There is something to be said about self-discipline. it is one of the most empowering thing we can do for ourselves. If something is worth it to us, we will do it without too much effort. The results are guaranteed and it can be tailored to our own preferences within certain limits. Cheers to that!
Dr. Brogan,
Thanks for your persistent honesty and clear headed intensity. I noticed your phrase “Look at it, smile, and push on through.” is how I feel about your persona in most of the many videos you have created. This is much more evident in the newer talks. Not to belabor the point, but that phrase has the major ingredients of success (or at least happiness). First look at it, do not look away. Second, smile and do not be unduly fearful. Today might even be a good day to die but we must forge ahead because we must. Lastly, push on through. Push on through, don’t veer away, don’t hide, simply move forward slowly and intuitively, or run with joy.
Carry on,
Be Good,
Bill
Your point resonates deeply. I was surprised and a bit horrified when receiving acknowledgement from my boss a few years ago in front of a big room of colleagues. It was my 10 year anniversary at the agency. She described me as a turtle. I was fast and a hurdler in High School, not slow. Hmm. She said all the rabbits had left, run and gone away, but that I had taken in feedback and was quietly making changes, both personally and also in the programs under my supervision and listed the accomplishments. I have found this in my health as well – reducing high glycemic foods and packing them to work each day, setting a schedule to go to bed at night, and extricating myself from unnecessary talk to meditate. At the end my boss said, “all the rabbits have run away, my bet is on Cheryl”. For what? What race is to be won? The one of understanding how to support one’s inner physiology, psyche and spirit through knowledge, self-understanding, and unrelenting practice. Bringing to bear an integrity in myself that no one can take from me. That’s health. Step by step – the sustainable, slow everyone WINS WIN. Bless you Dr. Kelly Brogan and with love, Cheryl