A Magical Life: Health, Wealth, and Weight Loss

Cognitive Health in 2 Easy Steps with Nicole Laurent

April 26, 2023 Nicole Laurent Season 1 Episode 186
A Magical Life: Health, Wealth, and Weight Loss
Cognitive Health in 2 Easy Steps with Nicole Laurent
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Show Notes Transcript

Today I am joined by Nicole Laurent. Nicole has been a licensed mental health counselor in Washington State for over 15 years. Her current practice focuses on helping clients with anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues transition to a ketogenic diet or other nutritional therapies to compliment their psychotherapy work.  She helps people explore medication-free options for their mental health, using research and evidence-based nutritional and functional psychiatry so that people can get their lives back without nasty side effects or dependence on big pharma.

In her work, Nicole has found that by clearing the brain fog and memory problems that so many of us are plagued with, other problems can also clear up at the same time. In this episode, we will talk about how a micronutrient supplement can help the brain heal and the positive impact that bioavailable protein can have on your mental, emotional, and physical health.

Get Nicole's free Brain Nutrition Guide on her website: https://mentalhealthketo.com/free-brain-nutrition-guide/
Connect with Nicole:
On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thatketocounselor
On Twitter: https://twitter.com/KetoCounselor
On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mentalhealthketo/

DoTERRA Wellness Advocate
At Wholistic Natural Health Australia, we often recommend the use of high quality essential oils.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

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A Magical Life Podcast on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/amagicallifepodcast/
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Online: https://wholisticnaturalhealth.com.au
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Magic Barclay:

Welcome back to a Magical Life. I'm your host, Magic Barclay, and today I am joined by Nicole Laront. Nicole has been a licensed mental health counselor in Washington State for over 15 years. Her current practice focuses on helping clients with anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues transition to a ketogenic diet, or other nutritional therapies to compliment their psychotherapy work. She holds specialized training, allowing her to work with underlying biological factors in mental illness, which include a post masters certificate in nutrition and integrative health from Maryland University of Integrative Health. The certification is an integrative mental health professional from Evergreen certifications, training in the nutritional treatment of neurological disorders from nutrition network and completion of the ketogenic diets mental health clinician training course with Georgia EED md, as well as additional training in blood chemistry functional analysis and functional psychiatry practices. Nicole works with clients via telehealth. She helps people explore medication-free options for their mental health, using research and evidence-based nutritional and functional psychiatry so that people can get their lives back without nasty side effects or dependence on big pharma. She works one-on-one with clients and is exploring different online learning and group offerings to help people learn about ketogenic diets for mental health, as well as the many other evidence-based ways to treat mental illness In 2021, she created mental health keto.com, a blog devoted to educating people about ketogenic diets and mental health and neurological issues. You can find her all over social media spreading the good news about keto as an option to treat mental illness. Oh my goodness. Welcome, Nicole.

Nicole Laurent:

Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here.

Magic Barclay:

I'm excited to have you here. Now I'm going to ask you three questions that I ask all of my guests, and I find the listeners just love the array of answers that we get. So here comes your first one. What can your expertise do to accelerate health, not just physical, but emotional and spiritual?

Nicole Laurent:

So I help people rescue their brain function, by using those different treatments, nutritional and functional psychiatry principles. And when we clear up brain fog, Oh my goodness. mood improves energy. The ability to, be able to pursue hobbies and friendships and, enjoyment. All just completely goes through the roof and people get to thrive, and feel better. And so when you fix those memory and focus issues, regardless of diagnosis, whether it's t b i, mild cognitive impairment, mood disorders, even improving that brain fog, even if you think it's coming from something else like gut health or hormone imbalance or other functional medicine targets, that improved function has the ability to improve wellbeing on all of these areas of emotional, spiritual, and physical wellbeing.

Magic Barclay:

I really love that you're coming from a place of nutrition rather than big pharma. So someone might be kind of questioning now, you know, my GP put me on a medication, how do I wean off it and go for a more natural nutritional approach.

Nicole Laurent:

Yeah, I've been a licensed mental health counselor for 15 years and so I really get to see all the people that the medications don't work very well on, or, actually see it potentially compounding issues. so wanting to get off of different types of psychotropic medications. it can be rough for people. Some people don't seem to have any issues, and some people find that that last 10 to five milligrams is really, really difficult. And so, you know, some of the things that I've learned through my functional psychiatry training that can be actually really helpful is a really good broad spectrum micronutrient. So, here in the states, maybe you guys could probably order from them also, but there's a company, a Canadian company called Hardy's. Uh, nutritionals, the, and they've been around for many, many years and they are just a really excellent broad spectrum micronutrient supplement. Um, and I have like a 15%, discount code I can share mental health keto that will get you a little bit off of them. And they're a little bit pricey, but they're just really good. And the reason those are necessary is that when you are trying to. go off of a psychiatric medication, you need more co-factors in order to up-regulate what your brain needs to heal and to readjust from going off of those medications. and so something like Hardy's Nutritionals or any other really good quality. Micronutrient spectrum type of thing, and I'm sure you would know exactly what to tell your people to get there in Australia, is really, really helpful. The other thing we find that helps with that and helps with withdrawal syndromes from psychiatric medications. Is a good complete amino acid supplement. So a lot of people have problems with their digestion. They have low stomach acid, they aren't eating enough protein, or they aren't eating enough bioavailable protein. And what that means is that they are not getting enough amino acids. The protein's not being broken down, or they're just not taking enough in. And so a good complete amino acid supplement can be so helpful and so useful for people trying to come off of pharmaceuticals, particularly psychotropic medications. because it, again, it just gives your brain the building blocks it needs in order to. Rebalance itself, make enough of some neurotransmitters that it might need. and it's just really helpful and we will actually have people take both of these, this, uh, complete amino acid supplement and a broad spectrum a month before they start to go down off those last 10, 10 to five milligrams. And we find that it helps just exponentially. And I say a complete amino acid supplement. You know, don't run out and get a branch chain amino acid or a amino acid supplement that doesn't kind of have all of the amino acids. Because sometimes when you take too much of one amino acid and not another, that can actually cause a neurotransmitter imbalance. And we don't wanna add to, you know, any problems that you're having, with your mood and your cognition. And then for nutrition, um, moving more to a nutrition piece. I really like ketogenic diets. Not everybody with anxiety and depression needs a ketogenic diet for sure. A nice, animal-based paleo diet is something that I think works for many people. Just getting off ultra processed foods alone. Reduces neuroinflammation, and it can be life changing for people. but I like, to do the dietary piece with quite frankly, with some nutrigenomics because we're all different and we all have certain genetic SNPs. That means we need some more of some things and different forms of others, and I think that that should just be standard of care for people with mood issues and cognitive issues.

Magic Barclay:

Thanks for answering that one for me, Nicole. Now we. Often talk about wealth here, not just financial, but also personal and emotional wealth. So what are your top three tips to creating wealth?

Nicole Laurent:

Yeah. Well, I feel like my wealth is in my health primarily. By, you know, tapping into that, I feel like I am able to experience the wealth of those, other areas of, financial and emotional and all that good stuff. So, uh, my top three tips is to, know your fasting insulin score and your fasting glucose scores to determine if you're developing insulin resistance. and that might seem like a silly one, but there's actually, at least in the United States, there was a study that was recently done that showed that over 80% of people have one or more, um, markers of metabolic disorder. Uh, maybe not all of them. Maybe they don't meet full criteria for that, but they, they will have one. and so we are kind of mostly all on our way to. Having poor metabolic health in some way, shape or form. And so I really feel like that's an important tip to monitor that. Um, and then with that information, my next tip is that you use that to inform your diet and your nutrition, um, and to help you optimize your. Optimize your health. Um, and I think that's really important. And then, you know, to really pay attention to what your body is telling you, that's data. Um, and to not ignore it and to not just simply push through or pretend that there's nothing happening. So, if you have brain fog memory, or cognitive issues or mood issues, I think it's really important that you pay attention to that and you treat those symptoms and then when your brain works well, this contributes to your emotional wellbeing, your financial wellbeing. You can work better, you can work harder, you can have better quality of work you feel good about. and it just really increases your personal abundance. So like a happy brain with lots of mitochondrial energy can truly seize the day like nothing else.

Magic Barclay:

Wonderful. Now look, we also talk about weight issues here and you know, many people really battle this quite needlessly. Maybe they're not looking in the right direction at what's causing it. You know, maybe they have an eating disorder. So what can you offer the listeners who may be really battling with their weight?

Nicole Laurent:

Yeah, well, I've never had to really battle with, with my weight. I've always kind of been an underweight person until I got my health figured out. Um, but I often see people lose weight after they adopt different nutritional interventions. and. Part of this is that some of these diets improve insulin sensitivity in the body, which increases the body's ability to burn body fat. And for if any of your listeners are struggling with any kind of eating disorders but not anorexia, this wouldn't be appropriate for anorexia, but for bulimia and possibly binge eating, they may be interested to know that ketogenic diets are being used to treat binge eating disorders and bulimia. and they're finding that it seems to tame cravings, for overeating and also improves mood. So when you have insulin resistance, then leptin resistance kind of happens. They, they, they come together often. there's a lot of changes that happen in the brain with a ketogenic diet. That are very beneficial. And so there's even some published case studies of using ketogenic diets for binge eating disorder in the peer reviewed literature. And I believe there's clinical trials also going on, right now. And, and this is very counterculture to the current eating disorder. Treatments that are out there that are based mostly on, psychology research as opposed to nutritional biochemistry research. Um, but it's still quite evidence-based and they are still working on identifying the biological mechanisms involved. But I, I think people who are struggling with weight Also need to understand that protein is really important for you. And my understanding from my training is that you will continue to have that hunger signal triggered continuously until you get adequate bioavailable protein. and so I think that for your listeners, understanding that they need to prioritize good bioavailable protein in their meals is super important.

Magic Barclay:

Thanks for that. Now, we love freebies here for the listeners. So what can you offer as a freebie for the listeners and where can they find it?

Nicole Laurent:

Yeah, well my blog is free, obviously, and it's a pretty amazing resource if I do say so myself. so there's lots of discussion on there about how different mental illnesses and cognitive symptoms have shared roots of origin, info on supplementation and a ton of peer reviewed resources that they can ex. Floor with almost every article. I have a free ebook on there that they might be interested in if they want to enter their email addresses. Uh, it's called Ketogenic Diets and Stress Hormones. there's a lot of Misconceptions about the level of stress on the adrenals that ketogenic diets, create and how long that happens and what those effects are. And so I wrote a little free ebook about that. and then, I am currently. In a cohort right now of people who are doing, uh, the Brain Fog Recovery Program online. and I'm not going to be offering another one until probably September but I am going to be doing some more research on it to fine tune it and to make it even better before I finalize what that program looks like. And if they want to, help me with that research, I am happy to listen to what's going on with them. And also, uh, I can usually provide a little bit of help or insight around nutrition, diet, and supplementation that they might find helpful for their symptoms.

Magic Barclay:

That's very generous. Thank you. Now people can find you on Twitter at Keto Counselor. You're also on Facebook at that Keto counselor, Instagram, mental Health, keto, and Reddit At. N Laron, so that's N L A U R E N T. There's so many great ways people can reach out to you there. Thank you so much, Nicole, for being so available to the

Nicole Laurent:

people. Yeah, thank you. I'm, I'm happy to share what I know.

Magic Barclay:

Great. Listeners, this was your episode 180 6. In 180 7. Nicole will rejoin us and we'll dive quite deeply into a couple of things that probably aren't spoken about very much for now. Thank you all for your time. Go forth and create your magical life.